The Story of Pippin - Part II

By Sunday of the first week in her new home Princess seemed a little more confident, so I untied the umbilical cord and let her have the run of the house. She was still jumping out of her skin at any sudden noise--and Jerry is very noisy, especially in the kitchen. She seemed to be as curious as any cat, would run when frightened, but then go back and peek around the kitchen counter to see what was going on. I began unhooking the leash when she went outside into the fenced yard, but stayed at the sunroom windows to watch. The doggie door is still a mystery to her and I decided not to encourage her to learn its secrets until later. Very wise decision, as it turned out.

The next day, Monday, the temperature had risen enough to allow Princess and Rufus to frequently go outside and race around the very soggy yard. I decided one time it was safe to leave my post at the sunroom window and take care of something simmering in the kitchen. I was gone probably 5 minutes. When I came back to my post, I could see Rufus, but not a sign of a little red and white dog. I ran out and looked all over the back yard, but could find not a sign of her. I went around the building to see if I could find her-- not a trace.

To have a basenji on the loose is not a good thing. Once they start running, nothing stops them short of a fast-moving vehicle. That is always the great fear. Many years ago we lost our first little basenji that way and I wouldn't wish that experience on any dog or dog lover. So I grabbed my boots and coat and dashed out the door, ran around the outside of the property, and looked in all directions. I was particularly nervous because Route 25A runs close to my house and the cars and trucks were coming and going. But still there was not a sign of Princess.

At just that moment, Jerry came back from a trip to the post office to mail Christmas packages. We looked everywhere together, but there was not a trace of her. He got back in the car and drove all over the development and I walked alongside Route 25A with my heart in my mouth. That's a much--traveled county road running through the center of Piqua, across the Great Miami River in Ohio. Just a little west of here, between this bedroom community and the river, traffic from I-75 enters and exits onto 25A. I walked east along 25A. I could see in the distance an object just about the color of Princess lying in the deep ditch beside the road. By this time I was almost running and panicked by what I knew I might find. When I got close enough, I was incredibly relieved to find that the object was just a pumpkin left over from Halloween.

Jerry met up with me and we decided to go back to the house and make calls. While he called the police and the Troy Animal Shelter on his cell phone, I called Tonya in Missouri. She was very reassuring, told me puppy mill dogs never wander far and that she was sure I would find Princess hiding close by. She said she'd make calls to the Ohio basenji volunteers and a couple of local numbers she had on her contact list. She also suggested we use our computer to print posters with a picture and instructions, which we did. I took Rufus with me and combed the area again.

Jerry gets around with a cane so I did all the walking, put up posters, and knocked on doors where there were dogs as Tonya said Princess might be attracted by the barking. I walked for hours on and off the streets, all over the large field behind the house and around the pond, looking in drain pipes and ditches, under bushes and any other place I could see where a small dog might hide. The ground was so muddy that my boots sank down and squished with water, while Rufus faithfully trudged along beside me. Poor guy, he had mud half-way up his legs! He seemed to understand what it was all about, and he was a very good boy throughout the whole ordeal.

By late afternoon, it seemed like I'd walked forever, while Jerry persistently drove up and down country roads with his cell phone. I came back to the house a few times and talked to Tonya, who kept encouraging me and giving suggestions. My sister June called and said she'd heard from Jerry and that she was praying. My brother John called and told me he and his wife sure hoped we'd find her. I called an international prayer group and they put her name on their prayer list. Tonya called and said she was praying and her husband said to tell me he knew she would be found. For some reason Tonya's husband's quiet assurance calmed me and I thought maybe such a thing was actually possible, though I couldn't see how.

By this time it was starting to get dark, the temperature was dropping, and I was feeling about as low as it's possible to feel. I have had 8 basenjis before I applied for Princess and had never lost one since my very first, Baba Yaga, who was the victim of a car accident. That was before I knew that this breed is infamous for its talented escape artists, and since then I've been able to keep my basenjis safe.

Every time I came back to the house somebody from BRAT called with encouragement. It was a workday and they were trying to find volunteers who could help in the search. They assured me there would be people the next day, but I knew a big freeze was forecast for Tuesday and the chances of a tiny shorthair dog surviving the night with the bitter Ohio wind and below-freezing temperatures, was growing dimmer by the minute. As if that wasn't enough, Ohio also has coyotes now. I had heard them more than once howling in the distance. So many dangers for such a little dog, who had never been outside a small enclosure before.

I went outside and made a shelter beside the place where I was sure she'd gotten out. I put up pieces of plywood around the cage and covered the whole thing with a piece of carpet. I found a little carton just the right size for her to curl up in, put in a towel and set it in the cage with a bowl of food. By this time it was 7:30pm, very dark, and the wind had picked up with a little stinging sleet in the air. When I came back inside there were calls from people who said to please call them if she came back as they wouldn't be able to sleep until they knew she was safe. Then I got a call from a man who said he was from BRAT and who wanted to know if I was the woman who had just lost a basenji listed as Princess. When I said yes, he said I could relax now - Princess had been found!

The BRAT volunteer gave me a local number to call to get her. Jerry immediately called and talked to the woman who had called in to report the BRAT number on Princess's rescue tag, and drove over to pick her up. Amazingly, little Princess had walked over 5 1/2 miles! She had headed north, thank God, and had walked away from the river and the traffic over farmland, mostly cornfields. She had had to cross two country roads, including busy Route 25A. She was caked with mud, with gooey clay clumped up between her toes which had probably weighted down her paws as she walked. What a dirty, tired, bedraggled little dog--but what a relief to have her back! That was some walk through corn stubbles and soggy patches all the way. Everybody says it's a miracle she survived--and believe me there was some rejoicing all around when she was found!

As it turned out, Princess's behavior completely contradicted the typical behavior of lost dogs, especially puppy mill dogs. Usually puppy mill dogs wouldn't venture very far, or let strangers near them. Princess may be a puppy mill dog, but she's all basenji, so of course she behaved like one. What actually happened was that a farm woman was out walking her dog after dark. Because of the coyotes she said she never let her dog out alone at night. She saw this bedraggled little red and white dog out all by herself and she knew any dog out after dark in that area had to be lost. Princess trotted right up to the woman, who picked her up and carried her back to the house. The woman said she was so cute that she was tempted to just keep her, but she called her daughter in the next farmhouse who came over, took her home, and called the BRAT 800 tag number.

She's back now. Upon inspection of the yard the next day, I found that the early winter freeze had lifted up a couple of wooden fence posts that hold the side gate in place, creating a tiny space under the gate for Princess to wiggle through. Rufus did the same thing at this very spot last winter so we had recently re-set the fence posts in cement, but my brother John says in this clay soil it takes extraordinary measures to keep them in place. As soon as we can we'll re-set the fence posts even more securely- cemented in 40 inches below the surface to avoid being pushed up by ice- but in the meantime we will just blockade the area and I will not let her out of my sight again until I know it's safe.

Things are finally settling down, and Princess now has a new name. "Pippin" suits her so much better, because the original usage of the word in old England referred to a very small piece of gold. Princess just wasn't right, because what Princess worth her royal salt would set off trekking across soggy fields at Christmas time to try to set a canine record for most miles covered while slogging through mud in 6 hours?

She is so much more confident now. Less jumpy. Trots around like she owns the place, her little curly tail now held up saucily over her little rear end. She’s catching on to the routine, follows Rufus everywhere and loves my famous hound stew. Today she and Rufus played “musical chairs.” She has been eyeing my big leather recliner in my study where Rufus likes to curl up for his nap. When he left his perch for few minutes today, Pippin jumped up in his place. When she got down for a drink of water, Rufus took her place. A few minutes later, I discovered she was back in the chair. After awhile they both fell asleep, Pippin still in the chair and Rufus on the floor beside her like the perfect gentleman that he is. He is such a good boy! And he deserves a nice little playmate for Christmas.