Copper's Happy Holiday Ending

Answered prayers, candy canes, and a dog named Copper

One of the great things about living amongst many Marine Families is we get to help each other at holiday time. This year it was our turn to help out while other families went to visit their extended families out of town. We have had the great joy of keeping Copper. A really old, really fat, Beagle. This is his best trick. He is adorable. He just rocks back on his squared off back end and sits up and begs. He is a true food sleuth.

To be honest you can't really appreciate Copper's girlish figure in this picture, and my photography skills just don't do him justice. I wish I looked this cute from behind.


We had a stand up and beg photo shoot. So on to the tail at hand... Sorry I couldn't resist, on with the tale!

Copper spent a lot of time just hanging out with us. Recruit 4 sort of took over being his "person". He took care of Copper and Copper was kind enough to become a living breathing stuffed animal/bed buddy.




These two pictures are important because they were the LAST KNOWN LOCATION of Copper on Sunday Dec 28Th. Yes, you heard me. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon and everyone took naps. Then we had a traumatic Sunday evening.

Later that afternoon as I took down the Christmas tree I remember seeing Copper sleeping with his person in the floor. Copper had been with us since Christmas day so he had already established a pattern. He slept in the family room. Then he would move to the corner by the back door on the big pillow, then he would go to the camouflaged room known as the kennel-barracks-locker room where I believe he felt most at home.

He would often snooze for a couple of hours before resurfacing for a potty break, short walk around the back yard, sniff a few other dogs, beg for a treat, and go back into the family room and start all over again.

So when Recruit 4 began looking for him I figured he was tucked away in a new corner. Then we realized the worse. Copper was no where in the house, back yard, front yard, ANYWHERE. All the other dogs (four of them, we have another house guest, Dixie, a blond lab) were lounging around the kids. They weren't missing, why was Copper?

I really hate having dogs disappear, but it's even worse if it's your friend's dog and it's really horrible if it's a sweet old fat Beagle named Copper!!! I've said he was fat a lot in this post, I hope no one takes offense, but in this case it's all part of Copper's charm. I love his rotundness. He just wouldn't be Copper if he was a smidgen tinier... It's the essence of his Copperness. We had to hide the dog food, I don't think anyone would have benefited to have his Copperness increase in width though...

I was wearing my red Christmas jammies. You remember, the ones Recruit 4 said matched the table cloth... I jumped up and began looking for Copper. The Marine, Recruit 1, and myself all began driving the neighborhood. How the heck could an old fat Beagle disappear? I even drove all the way back to Copper's house, carefully checking the access road and peering into the woods to see if I could see little glowing puppy eyes as I drove.

I was barefoot, bra-less, and wearing my red table cloth jammies. I realized my state of undress as I sat in my friend's driveway looking at the Christmas lights on their house creating a warm happy glow and realized I couldn't go notify the neighbors to be on the lookout if Copper showed up. I didn't need the police called on a crazy woman barefoot, bra-less and wearing jammies standing on their front porch. Or sitting in the driveway of an empty home. I headed out of there. I figured Copper might be confused and head back to where his scent was the strongest, even if it was 5 miles away from our house.

I was getting desperate. I passed crazy up about ten years ago. So adding desperate to the mix often leads to me sitting in red jammies in driveways, barefoot, and yep, bra-less. ugh.

So I returned home, meanwhile The Marine drove to the rec center and he and Recruit 3 took flashlights and walked the fields and some of the woods separating our housing area from the Rec center.

Recruit 1 and 2 roamed around on foot.

Recruit 6 kept saying in a sad little voice "Where's Copper? Oh were is poooooorrrrrr ooooooold Copper?" I wanted to yell SHUT UP, but I didn't because it was really sweet, and really annoying at that very moment.

I was trying to call Copper's real people the whole time. WHERE WERE THEY!!!!!????

I got a hold of another family who we are all friends with to see if they had any other contact numbers. THEY even loaded up and drove around looking for Copper.

The Marine called animal control. They didn't work that day, so I needed to call first thing the next morning.

I finally spoke with Cooper's mom, "The Principal". She is the director of the pre-school Recruit 6 goes to. yep, we lost the Principal's dog. That bites... and I had sat in her driveway in my night clothes. I was not impressing myself.

I was so upset and she was so kind when I spoke to her. I had been praying so hard. I later found all the kids were too.

Recruit 4 told The Marine he felt like Copper was in some one's garage while they were driving around. He told me that the next morning.

Recruit 1 said a prayer and her fella suggested someone probably had picked Copper up.

At the time I wasn't talking to anyone. I had no idea what anyone else thought. I was just soooo soooo upset. I prayed that we would get Copper back. I knew Heavenly Father knew where Copper was, even if I didn't and I asked if He would he keep Copper safe and please help me get him back for his family.

I felt a sense of peace, but kept looking and running to the front door. I even woke up at 0300 and ran out to the front porch. The night was still and quiet. No Copper, no Beagle howl, or any other dogs barking for that matter. Where the heck was he? And why did he leave? No one else did.

Didn't we love him? Didn't he get snuggled? Didn't he feel welcome? We gave him a photo shoot for goodness sakes!

So I made my plan. 0700, dawn's early light, I woke, dressed and began rallying the troops. We were going on man/dog hunt. We were going to create a human net just like on TV. The plan was to spread out 20 feet between each of us. We were going to cover the fields around our house through the woods and on to the rec center. Then I was going to run off two hundred fliers, enlist another family or two with a lot of kids, and saturate the neighborhood. Someone had Copper and we were going to get him back.

Can you hear the motivational sound track playing in your head?

My teens began dressing and at 0802 I dialed the Police Department and asked for the extension to animal control and explained my situation. I told the nice lady my plans to human net the fields and plaster the neighbor hood. She said if she found him she would call and I should do the same.

I hung up and ran to put on search clothes which included jeans, a bra, and tennis shoes. The phone rang about 1 minute after I hung up. I ran to it and said hello?!

It was the animal control lady.

Me: "Hello?!"

Animal Lady: "Kelli, I had another call coming in while I was on the phone with you, that's why I had to hang up so quickly. It was a lady who has your dog."

Me: "OH MY GOSH WOOOHOOOOO!!! Can I get him?"

Animal Lady: "Do you want her address?"

duh

Me: "yes yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

We hung up and I did a disturbing happy dance in the kitchen. The teenagers went back to bed. Recruit 4 and I immediately drove three streets down to the corner house. We are also a corner house.

Copper had wandered out of the back yard, which still remains a mystery when or how that happened, and got to this lady's house and became confused. He wouldn't leave her driveway. She even walked him down the street on a leash about the same time we realized he was missing.

She was afraid he would get hit because he was short, dark, and old. Copper spent the night in a lovely dog cage with pillows, blankets, and a blanket over the top of the cage. He had a can of science diet, beggin strips, and was treated like royalty!

Recruit 4 and I had brought a box of candy canes to the nice people as a thank you. It's all I had on hand. We were overly happy and grateful. They probably thought we were the biggest dorkiest people. Well, actually I was overly happy and dorky. Recruit 4 thanked them, helped Copper in the van and waited while I gushed and gushed over how wonderful these corner neighbors were.

I left excited happy messages on every one's voice mails. I called The Marine at work and told him the fabulous news.

Copper has spent the rest of his time with us doing what wonderful old fat Beagles do.

Isn't he the best??? His real people, the more responsible ones come home tomorrow. We do Copper watch now. This is about all we've seen... THANK GOODNESS!