Late Winter Work as Spring Barrels down on us.

Emerging

An army of owls

The Adventure of Kimsa and Baloo

A wolf in sheepish clothing.

This is a story about our dogs.

Some Background:

Baloo is our longtime companion. He came to us at about one and a half years old, while we were pregnant with Jacob. He was very quiet and submissive and dealing with a hip injury. We nurtured him back to four legs and he has been an incredible friend. I’ve never known a dog who barked so selectively. Baloo taught us about Loyalty and Unconditional Love. Anyone who encountered him saw his specialness.

We had hopes of breeding him to get some wonderful Baloo pups from him. He had his own ideas about breeding and would run after the gal down the street when she was in heat. He had his last foray a few months ago when he ran himself lame. His hip came out of it pretty destroyed. Since then he started a steady decline, limping, eating less, and seeming very sad. He was taking on the scrawny lion look and between the vet and our people; we believed he might not see another winter.

We decided to introduce a female dog to serve as overlap in our family and with any luck have a successful breeding. Kimsa arrived a couple weeks ago…and she was just coming into heat. Fingers crossed. Baloo mainly tolerated her without much enthusiasm. We could see that he was a bit insecure about the situation and we all took pains to help him maintain his top dog place. He got special treats and attention and we were just starting to see a kinship build between Baloo and Kimsa.

It had been only a week when the latest drama began. The two dogs, Kimsa and Baloo, slipped out the back door out of our house while the family was eating dinner Monday evening. They made their way around to the front yard, sniffing and wagging. Baloo was used to being outside alone. He had earned the trust of the family. He stayed close except for chasing a bit of tail now and again. He knew and abided the boundaries. Kimsa was new to the household and had not yet been given autonomy like her companion. On top of that she was also coming into heat.

Fast forward to dinner clean-up and the realization that the dogs were not in the house:

            Jacob was in bed and Si and I began to search the property and neighboring land, all the while trying to piece together how and when they got out. Where would they go? We walked and looked for an hour before we got the call. Baloo had been hit by a car on Route 5 south and he was killed. The driver phoned us to let us know and would be leaving Baloo there on the side of the road. Si and I jumped in the car with tears and disbelief, driving an excruciatingly long time to find him just above Harpoon on the side of the road. Si leapt from the car in search of Kimsa over the embankments. I cared for Baloo and got him situated in the back of the car, trying to understand…just pure liquid sorrow really. Unmixed with anything else, it cut through cleanly into the deepest places in my heart, then emerged again with Baloo’s name closing around my throat.

Kimsa’s name then bounced through my head. Got to find her! How did they get way over here? I can’t believe how far they’ve come! The tracks! As Si and I roved the neighborhood in search of night owls who might have seen her we realized that Baloo and Kimsa must have ran the rail from Hartland and tried to cross the road as the track turned. Pure testosterone and adrenaline is undoubtedly what carried Baloo so far on his lame leg. Kimsa’s fear and uncertainty spurred her on as well, not fully bonded to us. We talked to a few people, and then resigned ourselves to return home for now.

Once home, we briefed our tenants, compared experiences and set to call the police and make flyers, post on FB, emails, and notify anyone else we could think of at that late hour. It was not an easy sleep and we woke knowing that deflecting the truth from Jacob for now would buy us some time to minimize the impact. Jacob was headed to his grandmother’s for a few days and if we could find Kimsa we’d have less bad news to deliver.

Si set out with flyers to talk to folks at Harpoon, neighbors in that area and the shelters/vets. I put on a happy face and got Jacob to his Mema’s, then returned up 91 at 45 mph half hoping for evidence so we would “at least know”. Nothing. I came home to an empty house and quietly commiserated with the folks that have kids who have already fledged. Will it feel like this when Jacob goes off on his own life adventure? That afternoon I went to Paradise Park to have a look. It showed me just how large an area we might be looking in. I caught several dog walkers and asked them to be on the lookout.

More fitful sleep, then Wednesday morning came and we made a plan. On Tuesday Si had checked out the woods near Baloo’s accident and made friends with some of the property owners there. He had permission to enter through their land to a forested area butted by a major highway, and secondary roads. It’s probably about one square mile of teardrop shaped land with a peak just north of center. It’s a fairly large area but not so bad as including the Town Forest just south.

We decided to hike in early to look for tracks in the fresh snow dusting and to broadcast and lay scent trails. I fried up the rest of the bacon the dogs had tasted days before, going so far as to hold our hats over the greasy pan. We brought treats, kibble and some things that smelled like Baloo. Si and I spent about three hours hiking around in there, looking, calling, peeing and leaving treats in various places. We distributed some more flyers on the way home, and tracked down some landowners who had some areas posted. We got permission to search their land and went back before dusk to look there. Tick tock.

Thursday morning we made a new plan. I made haste for work where I made a hundred copies of our flyer. After work I headed over to Juniper Hill and canvassed the cul-de-sacs with my friend Jen, with the intention of lining the base of the hillside with eyes for Kimsa. We talked to about a third of the people we left flyers for. So many folks commiserated and promised to look out for us. It was gratifying, if not directly productive.

 Si took off to spend the day in those woods he had become so familiar with. This time he went with the intention of laying a scent trap and spending some real time in roughly the same area. We learned that Kimsa’s previous owner would call in the dogs by banging a cast iron pot with a wooden spoon and howling, rather than calling by name. Si, who I now refer to as Percival, brought food to put in little piles and a sheet from Baloo’s bed which he cut into strips and tied to trees. He also put pieces of the bacon-coated paper towel on the paths that he laid across the peak of the wooded area. More peeing. Howling. Banging. Si basically made an “X marks the spot” with long trails off from the peak to lead her up to his “camp”. By his telling, Si was returning to the peak by way of a long trail on the spine of the ascent. There she was, waiting at camp. She barked to tell him she was there. This is the first time either of us has heard her bark. Si had been in the woods almost five hours that day. Kimsa had been gone through the dark of the moon.

I can tell you that Jen and I whooped all the way back from our jaunt into Paradise Park. It was the best feeling. All the worry, planning and walking paid off. It was luck coupled with best case scenarios against some crazy odds.

All the people who held us in their mind’s eye, hoping for a reunion, really made the difference. I already believe in the power of the collective mind. This seems like proof. It’s truly amazing that Kimsa was where we thought she was. She had not gone back across the tracks, or further south, or ran into trouble. We just kept behaving as if our assumptions were correct…believing she was there. So much of this was well out of our hands.

Si was amazing with his steady resolve. He had plans for beyond Thursday, if it didn’t work out. His strategic thinking and doggedness gave us our Disney ending. We really fell down the rabbit hole. It forced us to root into the tasks at hand, forgo all else and make strides toward a singular effort.

After all this, I have to credit Baloo the most. He was with Kimsa, propelled by hormones and who knows what else. If he had not been killed on that road we would never have known they were that far away from home…in that direction…in the woods. We would have been facing a greater torment…the drain of not knowing. In the end Baloo gave Kimsa back to us and I cherish his gift…Beloved Baloo Dog.

Corny Cookie Jar

I enjoy carving lino blocks to print greeting cards. I especially love to use the blocks to "print" on clay. This piece is for sale at EarthStar Pottery on Route 5 North Hartland. Stop by and peruse the gallery for an extensive and ecclectic mix of ceramic work from local artists.