Katie, our Bluetick Coonhound, likes spending as much time as possible at Grandma and Grandad’s house.  She especially enjoys spending that time snuggled in on their couch.  She also gets a lot of “grand-dog” spoiling while there and even has a tendency to hide when I tell her it is time to come home.

Well, today happened to be of the days that Katie Blue was o’er yonder at the grandparents’ house.  She and Grandma had just returned from a nice walk  (Finally, an actual sunny day!!!) and were in the front yard –

When all of a sudden a deer ran through the yard!!…and Katie took off after it.

A few notes:

  • Katie is an old puppy. Most of the time when you go out for a walk with her, you have to make sure you don’t go too far; otherwise you’ll practically have to drag her home, which was the case not five minutes prior as she ended her walk at a very slow pace.
  • Deer don’t really frequent our neighborhood; there really isn’t a safe place for them to live anywhere nearby. This was a surprise visitor for sure.

So, it was a bit of a shock to Grandma when Katie took off…she was gone.  Out of sight.  The deer, followed by Katie, followed by Grandma, bolted through all the neighbors’ backyards.  I imagine that Katie lost sight of the deer fairly quickly; that deer would have been way faster.  However, her hound dog nose kept her on the trail.  Grandma has a great sense of smell, but not good of enough to keep track of Katie.

Not really having any idea where Katie had gone was a bit nerve racking, but at least she had headed in the direction with less traffic.  Grandma called us and we headed over to help find our hound.  We split up.  I went on foot in one direction.  Belle went a runnin’in a different direction and Grandma and the little boys went driving around.   Fortunately, we had Katie back in about twenty minutes, but it sure seemed like a lot longer.  Belle was the one that located her.  A young man had “captured” Katie and was walking her back (it was very handy that she had ran away with her leash still on).  Truly, the only one that knows where Katie’s adventures took her, is Katie.

The awesome part though, the reason for really sharing any of this, is to express our gratitude for the help we received from others.

Being the first truly nice weather day in quite some time, several people were outside.  Everyone we stopped to talk to was very kind, even if we were tromping through their yards.  They agreed to keep a look out for the large brown, black, and white dog running around.

Four people even completely stopped what they were doing and began searching with us, heading in opposite directions to cover more ground.  One lady started knocking on her neighbors’ doors to see if they had our deer chasing dog.

So, to all those people, I’d like to say thank you.  Now I know, most of those people will probably never see this – so I am taking the liberty to extend the thank you to everyone, in any situation that has willingly been kind and helpful.  The thank you may have not formally gotten back to you, but know that someone was grateful for your kindness.

Kindness is important.  Kindness is necessary.

We didn’t know these people.  They didn’t have to help us, but they did.  Thank you.  Thank you.  And thank you.