Dec 22 - Pressie's Great Adventure (aka Running Wild in Pep)

Today will forever be dubbed, “Pressis’s Great Adventure”.

See a black dog out there? Neither could we...

While Mom & I went to the hair salon, Bryan was in charge of Pressie. While playing with my parent's dog, Jake, Press got out of the yard. She and Jake were having a great time exploring and Bryan & Dad thought, well maybe it won’t be so bad, she’ll come back in with Jake. Uh, that would be a big NO! Jake came back to the house and Pressie headed northwest for Bernalillo. She made it almost 3 miles cross-country (my parents live on a ranch, surrounded by ranches) before Bryan and Dad got her headed back toward the house. Since she won’t let any of us close to her unless she is sitting down on her bed… they couldn’t get close enough to her to nab her.

Mom & I came home around 2 PM and saw a truck sitting in the road just past our turn. Thinking it could be illegal hunters we drove up to it, I recognized it as OUR truck and immediately knew that Pressie was taking an unauthorized "walk-about". Bryan was too, as he tried unsuccessfully to herd her to the house.

Pressie circled the house at about a ½ mile radius for 12 hours. We would go walking in the pastures trying to lure her back, sometimes we couldn’t see her at all (perhaps hunkered down against the bitter cold & ferocious wind (wind chill was at 15 degrees) and sometimes we’d see her trotting off in the distance, always about ¼ to ½ mile from us. She looked just like a furitive, black coyote running in the pasture.

Just before dusk, Dad, Bryan and I decided we’d do one more walk-about to try to get her back to the house, we each walked a different way for about 1/2 to ¾ mile out and saw hide nor hair of her. So as we went back to the house, Bryan and I decided we’d drive around to see if we could at least see her somewhere.

And we did, headed away from the house. I called to her and got her headed home but she just ran on past it. We did manage to get her to stop and look at us so I got out of the truck with treats and started walking down the road, hoping she was cold enough & curious enough to follow me in. I did get her within 30 feet of me but no closer; she turned and ran parallel to the corral fence… I cut across and got in front of her where she could see me, holding the treats out on either side, hoping she’d smell them and follow me… something worked, I got her to follow me to the yard, talking to her the whole time. I got her just inside the yard and I almost got the gate closed before she darted around me and out again, heading west. I figured that was it, and went in to get more treats to leave at/in the crate we’d placed out in the pasture for shelter (it was bitterly cold & windy and not getting better).

As I started to the crate I heard the tell-tale tinkle of her tag and tried again. This time I got her further in the yard, scared her (not proud of that) into the far corner (opposite the gate) and then got the gate shut. Boy, was she ready to go in the house! Once she was in the yard, she was all for getting inside, running through the door like a shot and up on the couch like she belonged there. It took me and Dad about 20 minutes to pull the cactus thorns & needle grass out of her nose & feet. She was very thirsty naturally and hungry too. Dad said she was "about boiled dry". Poor baby, we told her what a GREAT dog she was and just dotted on her so that maybe next time she would come on back sooner than 12 hours!!!

Back in bed, safe & mostly sound