Neo

Neo was let out by my little one around 6:00 pm. He ran straight to the green belt and creek across the street, as all labs love the water. It had just snowed about three inches (or more) and everything was well frozen over. I ran to get him, but he didn't come when I yelled. I had a 10 month old in the house, so had to run back to get her. We hopped in the car and off we went looking for Neo. We called everyone we knew in the neighborhood to keep a look out for him. He had done this before, but always went his round to the end of the street(along the creek) and headed back home. This time was different. We couldn't find him!!! Several neighbors got out and helped looking. The roads were so bad that one man jumped on his 4 wheeler to get through the rough areas. Another friend who lived a couple of miles away got in his big truck and started helping too. We drove a mile block I can't tell you how many times. Still NO Neo!! We would come home every 30 minutes to check our home phone if someone had found him and called the number on his tag. My 4 year old who is so attached to Neo even sneaks out of bed at night to crawl next to him on his pillow was devastated as well as my 8 year old animal lover! They yelled out the car window for over 3 hours. Finally my 4 year old cried her self to sleep. At 9:45 that night we decided to head back home. The girls were exhausted and so was I. The baby had enough. When coming home my 8 year old said "I don't want him to think we gave up on him." We were so worried. We were afraid that the snow was keeping him from smelling his way back home.

Soon as we returned home, I sent out an e-mail to all the people in my address book in the Tulsa area. Little did I know what that would do for me.

My husband got home in the middle of the night from work and continued the search for a couple more hours to no avail.

I woke in the morning exhausted from being up all night worrying about him and to two crying girls still. While getting ready for the morning I got a call about 8:30. It was the PTA president from my girls elementary. She told me she was sending an e-mail out to every person in the school that she had an e-mail for! I couldn't stop crying (It still makes me cry!). What a wonderful person! From there I got dozens of e-mails saying people were forwarding the e-mail on to their friends and church groups! I was so touched that a community could come together so fast like that! I think by the end of the day more than a thousand people must have recieved that e-mail. I only wish I knew.

I checked all the local animal shelters to no avail and had started printing signs. Of course we were still driving around too. I just couldn't believe that no one saw him and called me! Where was our dog? It was that evening when all the kids in the neighborhood were helping us that he was found. We were loading the car to go put up the signs when one of the girls in our neighborhood who was helping us look for him was walking by an abandoned house and yelled NEO!!!!!!

I yelled back "Are you serious?!" She said he is in this house! One of the other girls ran to the back of the house and the door was shut, but the lock was broken, so she got the door open. Here he came running so fast for home he about trampled all of us in the mix!!!!! He got so much attention he didn't knwo what to do!!! We were all so happy!

We just couldn't figure out how he got in? It turned out that a neighbor saw him run out and me chase after. When I came back in the house for the baby, he went to the green belt to look for Neo. The man saw the door to the house open so he went and shut it to keep kids out. Little did he know that Neo was hanging out in there!

The next day I went into the house to make sure he didn't tear up anything. On the second floor was a window open. I went to shut the window and saw thousands of little Neo prints on the roof of the auning below! He had even been out on the roof.--probably looking down on us yelling for him just wagging his big-o-tail! You never think to look up for a dog, right?!

What a great end to a scary story! Thanks to all the help from so many wonderful people he made it home. No telling how long he would have been in that house.

Thank you to all my dear friends and their dear friends and everyone's prayers!

Desiree', OK