Molly Jean

I'd like to share my story with you about my lost dog.

I have two dogs. Both Labs, Molly the yellow lab/retriever mix and Shanda, the chocolate lab or cocoa pup as we sometimes refer to her. First off, Molly is not a dog. At least she doesn't think she is.

I had company come in from out of town. My friend has breathing problems so I like to keep my dogs outside for as long as I can during the day while she's here. My grandson went out back to play and I think got distracted by some neighborhood kids and went out front to play with them, leaving my gate unlocked and partially open.

About 7 that evening I looked out to see what the dogs were doing. It was going to be time to let them in soon. Shanda was running the fence with the dog behind us and Molly was laying on top the patio table taking a snooze. So I visited with my company a little longer. About 7:15 I thought I heard a dog whimper but looked on TV and saw a dog on there so figured it was just a dog on the television. At 7:20 I went to the back door to let the dogs in.. NO DOGS.. I called them, still no dogs. I immediately went to the front yard. Inside my courtyard stood Shanda. She had a look of confusion on her face. Molly was no where to be found. My grandson and I walked the neighborhood calling and looking for her but still no Molly. We jumped in the car and drove about several streets. Still nothing. A friend told us he had heard dogs barking to the street south of us so we concentrated our search in that area. We put up posters about every two blocks and made sure to mention she was micro-chipped so if found they could take her to a vet and find us. I put posters in local stores. Posted in the lost and found on Free cycle and Craig's list.

The next day a lady emailed me back and told me they had a yellow lab at a local animal shelter. I called. They assured me they didn't have her. I called several other shelters and no Molly there either. I made and posted MORE flyers. The second day she was missing I decided to go to another shelter and see for myself if she was there. We live in a sub community and the big city starts just a block from our house so it was possible if she went that way she might be at that shelter. We walked through the shelter and visited each cage. No Molly. I was upset and trying to come to terms with the thought that she was gone and we would probably never see her again. On the way home I decided I would just drive by the other two shelters I'd been calling because after all, one person told me this one shelter did have a lab and yet the person on the phone told me they didn't. I wanted to see for myself.

The first shelter we went to didn't have any labs but the dog catcher told me he had helped bring in a yellow lab that morning to a neighboring shelter. Turned out to be our local shelter. He asked me to follow him over there. I did and before we went in, he asked me if I could describe my dog. I explained she was a yellow lab/retriever mix with a red collar and about 6 years old. When I said red collar I saw a lump in the man's throat. I swallowed a ton of hope at that instance. He took us inside and told the officer on duty he was taking us back there to view the dogs. Second cage, there was Molly. She was wagging her tail so happy to see us. I fell to my knees. I cried, my grandson cried. I put my hand inside the cage and she started licking me. I put my face up to the cage and she started kissing me. I asked the man what I needed to do to get her out. He told me to come back out there and we'd talk to the officer.

He explained that Molly had been found at a local car dealership. She had been hit by a car trying to cross a busy street and had been laying under a car at the dealership for 2 days. The owners tried to feed her but she wouldn't eat. She wouldn't move. She was hurt pretty bad. The officer told me her backside must have been hit because her foot was scrapped up pretty bad. I told him we had been looking for her and showed him a poster of her. He saw where she had the chip and commented on it. I told him I had been calling his shelter for 2 days and each day I reminded the lady that answered the phone that she had a chip so if they brought in a lab please check her. She said they would.

We brought Molly home and I checked her out a bit to see what kind of injuries she had. She was hurting bad and her back foot looked infected so we took her to the vet. They x-rayed her from head to toe, cleaned her wounds and gave us a script for an antibiotic and some pain pills. She had several broken toes, a couple of dislocated toes and both her lungs were bruised. She had also lost the padding off both of her front paws. She would be ok but was going to be a long haul for her.

Molly has sure had some rough times in her life. When she was six months old we rescued her off the streets. She had been eating trash from a local cafe. We brought her home and although she appeared well she wasn't. Within 3 days we had her to the vets to find out she had Parvo and might die anyway. She was a fighter then, just like she's a fighter now, five years later.

She's been home 3 days now and she gets whirlpools twice a day to help the antibiotics fight that infection. She's walking now but only enough to get outside to do her business. Not a day goes by that I don't thank the Lord for leading us to her. I can only imagine how scared she was wondering when her mommy was going to come get her. Thank you Jesus for bringing our Molly back home to us!

So a few lessons learned from my story are to always check at the shelter in person and that shelters don't always check for micro-chips, so if you have a pet that has problems keeping their tags attached to their collar, like Molly does, please use black electrical tape and wrap them around the collar so they will stay in place. The pound may not think to check for chips but they will unwrap black tape that's on a collar.

Jeannie, OK