Watson's Big Adventure

Thursday brother Jeff, cousins Connie,Coral,Jennifer and Connie's daughter Sarah and I all flew to Sacramento and back for Grandpa's funeral. When our plane landed in Seattle on Thursday evening I called Darin to let him know and he told me that Watson (our beloved 4 yr old Lab/Golden Retriever cross) was missing when he got home from work and still hadn't come home. Of course, I went in to a panic and got home as quick as I could. We walked and drove all over our neighborhood well in to the night but still no sign of him.

Friday morning I called the Humane Society and went to their facility to check for him, had lost dog posters printed and came home to start canvasing the neighborhood. I stopped long enough to place an ad in the paper and post on Craig's List and lo and behold found a "found dog report" on CL with a matching description and photo. Watson had been found on the other side of the water near downtown Bremerton and CJ's Evergreen Park General Store. That is just over two miles from us and across the Manette bridge. I called the guy's number and he never called back ALL DAY. I also e-mailed him back from the CL post and he finally e-mailed us at 9:45 Friday night to tell us that when he got home last night his Grandad told him that Watson had gotten out during the day...so we were back to square one and we didn't read his e-mail until after 11pm.

We drove over to the area where he had been found and searched for him by car and on foot - still no sign of our baby and it was nearing 1AM at this point. After posting some posters and speaking with a police officer patrolling the neighborhood we finally gave up and went home. I checked Craig's List again and posted a lost dog ad there and then checked the Humane Society website and found a pet message board. I posted a lost dog message and then saw the "found dog" reports and again lo and behold - another report of our "well taken care of dog" with no tags and an orange collar. Since we'd had such trouble making the previous connection we decided to just go ahead and call so at 1:15 AM I woke this poor woman, Tina, up and started crying over the phone! She was VERY gracious and told me that her sister actually had Watson but that he was doing really well and was playing with their lab. Tina's sister Eva, has a young child so she understandably didn't want to wake her in the middle of the night but promised to call her first thing in the morning so we could pick him up.

Eva called us at 8:20 this morning and we compared notes on "features" (including the black spots on his tongue from his black lab mother) and Eva was sure she had our dog. So we met her at the Bremerton Tennis club to pick him up. What we have pieced together of the rest of the story is pretty amazing - our dog's wonderful personality and love for kids seems to have been his saving grace.

Watson must have gotten out of the first home early on Friday morning because he was found by some teenagers on their way to school near Mountain View Middle School which is back on our side of the bridge and 3/4 of the way back home from where he was found on Thursday night. He followed them to Bremerton High School - back across the Manette Bridge and nearly three miles from our home. He spent Friday at the high school entertaining and being loved up by MANY kids. His rescuer Iva works at the school and Watson spent a good share of the day laying in her office. Several kids had apparently called their parents and gotten permission to bring Watson home with them. However, Iva suggested they wait until Monday so she could try to find the owners and took him home to Tracyton for the night where he played ball etc.

Watson travelled somewhere in excess of 5 miles during his romp around town and his paw pads are pretty torn up so he is limping quite a bit and just generally worn out. I'm sure he was pretty stressed too so was probably running around alot. We don't know if he went for a swim during any of this time but his coat doesn't really seem like he was in the salt water however, he looked wet in the photo on CL from the first finder so we really don't know. He does love the water and there is a lot of it around here!

After we picked him up this morning we headed straight to Petco for a new collar tag and have filled out the Pet License application for the City of Bremerton to turn in on Monday and make him a legal citizen (I know - we have been lazy!). He did have a collar tag before but I forgot to put it back on his new collar that he got a few months ago. We've definitely learned our lesson on this one though. He will also be getting microchipped on May 31st at the Humane Society microchip clinic.

The photo below is of our worn out puppy dog resting on his favorite bed at home. We are SOOOOOOO glad we found him. Special Thanks to Tina and Iva and their families for being such wonderful dog rescuers. Oh - one more note...Tina lives just around the corner from us. We have walked by her home MANY times - especially in the last few days.