Friday, July 5, 2013

An anniversary filled with adventure!


Today started nicely enough as my husband and I celebrated 19 years of being married to each other. After running some errands, he came home with this lovely bouquet, and we already had reservations at our favorite romantic restaurant (about an hour or so away from home) at the Inn at Cedar Falls in the Hocking Hills. This is the third year that we've celebrated our anniversary there and it never disappoints.


But this time the trip there was very different. As we got off the highway onto the ramp that would take us to the road that leads to the inn, my husband noticed a dog running on the side of the road. The dog darted in front of our car, so we stopped and got out. The dog seemed like she wanted to get into the car so we let her get in and drove on, certain that we couldn't just leave her there to be hit by a truck or worse.

We stopped at a nearby vacationing area near the lake and called the Hocking County Sheriff's Office and they told me that they'd get the Dog Warden to see if they could put her in the dog pound until the owners were found. So we drove on to the restaurant and she stayed in the car (it was rainy and cool so she was perfectly alright) while we had our anniversary dinner. My husband went to check on her and found her calm and enjoying not being out in the elements (she was wet and full of burrs so she'd definitely been through some rough terrain). We also told the innkeepers who, very helpfully, contacted the nearby park ranger and asked for help in determining if someone was desperately looking for a missing dog.

After dinner, my husband made arrangements for us to meet up with a Sheriff Deputy at the Dog Pound, which is closed for the weekend, so the dog could stay there. We had already planned on giving them our information and telling them that, if the owners weren't found, we'd come back for the dog. We didn't know what we'd do with her since we are certainly not in the market for another furry child but we both agreed that the dog was simply too wonderful to have her put down.


We waited for a while at the Dog Pound until, finally, my husband saw the Sheriff's car and, to our delight, when he arrived he told us that he was being followed by the dog's owners! They, as we imagined anyone who loved such a wonderful dog would do, had searched high and low all over and near the campground where she had bolted after hearing some firecrackers early this morning. But this was all on the other side of the highway from where we found her so we're not even sure how the dog even crossed the busy state road!

It was a teary reunion for the owners and for me because it was such a happy ending, and such a lovely way to end our anniversary, doing what was right for that poor dog. All is well that ends well and Kia, as we found out she is named, is now happily reunited with her family.

At the inn, the owners even treated us to our wine because they were so grateful that we'd rescued the dog. Everyone we told the story to thanked us, which made us more convinced that we'd done the right thing.

Now safely home we're both exhausted after spending a lot longer out than we thought we would, but we're both so glad that we could contribute to a very happy ending for everyone, especially for Kia. This 19th anniversary will probably rank up there as one of the most memorable of them all!

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