Vaya Con Dios

Walter's Great Escape story just gets better and better.

Today I called his wonderful breeder, Kris, who lives close by. She watches Walter when I travel, which is great, because she not only owns 8 pugs herself (two of which are Walter's Momma and Papa) but she also babysits for lots of Walters siblings and cousins. So Walter literally goes home to a family reunion when I travel.

She asked me how I was and I said fine...and then she said, "Was Walter over in the grocery store parking lot yesterday?" What? I was stunned. How could she know that? I hadn't told anybody except my mother, neighbors and friends what happened...Had the secret society of Pug Police sounded the "BAD MAMA!" alarm? I know I would have. Anyway, here's how she knew:

Walter's biological little pug sister, Olive, was adopted by a nice family across town. It just so happens Olive's human mom was leaving the exact same grocery store at the exact same time Walter was found in the parking lot. (??) She saw this pug surrounded by people, wagging his tail while standing in a shopping cart and she thought it looked alot like Walter, but she wasn't sure. Of course she didn't have my number, nor did anyone because my little Wally had opted to go on his grand adventure without his collar, so she quick dialed Kris and left a message.

"Kris, there's a pug down at the grocery store. He looks alot like Olive. I wonder if it's Walter!"

What a lady! brilliant and kind. Anyway, Kris being the Pug Lady that she is geared up to go investigate. (Because a pug is a pug and if a pug-lover knows there's a pug in distress, any pug, they're going to get involved.) She called the store and the kid who answered the phone told her he just got in, but everyone was talking about it and he's told the Pug is fine and was picked up by it's (insane) owner.

Now I find all of this amazing because of my original disposition on the matter. The moment I realized Walter was missing, I freaked out. I hyperventilated. I frantically thought, I have to save him, where is he? My sweet precious angel baby! No one else can save him but me! No one else will care about my little defenseless porkchop! I'm the only one! Oh dear sweet Lord in Heaven he'll be alone in this world! No one will see him, he's s small! No one will help him! It's a cruel awful world and I've let my soft-bellied love won-ton out into it! Football players will find him and use my sugardumpling as dog-fight bait! I'll have to get all Jodi Foster in "The Brave One" and whip up some seriously illegal vigilante justice! I'll go to jail, but I'll deserve it! How could I let him loose alone in the world??

But Walter wasn't alone in the world. He was saved by pretty much everyone else in the world EXCEPT me. In the span of 20 minutes my "defenseless" dog had comandeered city officials, store employees and caring citizens, all of whom apparently agrees Walter shouldn't go to the pound. He was just too cute. They decided the person among them with the biggest fenced-in back yard should take him home and the others would call all the surrounding pounds and vets and leave contact numbers. Then they would make fliers and start asking around the neighborhood if anyone had lost a pug. Defenseless indeed. All these people helped him, not to mention phone calls were rocketing around the city about his well being.

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I was just the crazy lady with no shoes on running around frantically, unable to call Walter's name out loud because I was hyperventilating. And all of this, I must tell you, I find to be the most marvelous lesson, if I can learn it. While I was thinking All is Lost! All wasn't lost. the universe was very neatly stitching together a safety net to catch Walter.

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This Amazing synchronicity started clicking into place. Kris says Walter crossed the street with a group of people. He jogged to the corner, hung out with the group of people waiting. (people always cross there because the grocery store parking lot fills up quickly, so the park on our side of the street and cross over.) Everyone thought he was with everybody else. Then he just kept trundling along to the big place where "zay sell zah cheekin finners," and he skip-dee-deed to the parking lot, where there were the most people (fun!) kids (funner!) and the ocassional moving car, which is the "funnest" because he loves to chase them.

The universe keeps stitching things together, and collected a group of saints who stopped everything they were doing and turned their concerned attention on Walter. They fed him, watered him, gave him kisses and waited until the weeping, wretched owner (me) showed up to "save" him. But if I hadn't shown up, a WHOLE OTHER SAFTEY NET was being put in place.

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The moral of my little story, at least to me, is that there are forces at work far greater than we can imagine. There are more good people than bad. Even if you think everything is lost, in fact, everything is just beginning.