I got up Sunday morning and went to Winchester to have breakfast with John and Auntie Reg. I took Kate and Tilly with me because...they always go with me. Kate went exploring around their yard like any other visit and I didn't think anything about it. Kate doesn't get into trouble. She never leaves me.
9-14 year old Kate would never leave me. 15 year old Kate, now deaf and significantly vision impaired and while in good condition for a 15 year old dog, but not strong enough to venture into the woods...ventured into the woods.
I'm not sure if she fell, got disoriented because she doesn't see well or just wasn't strong enough to pull herself back up the hill. Regardless, even though we realized pretty quickly that something wasn't right, we couldn't call her name and expect any response.
And she wasn't just off in any old woods. She was on the "hillside" overlooking the Kentucky river. We immediately starting searching, but I knew we were in trouble. I called Tim and he came over and brought a neighbor with him.
We searched and searched and I called a border collie friend who I knew could whistle really loudly in hopes that maybe Kate could still hear a herding whistle and find her way back. She also brought two dogs with her in hopes they would stumble across her. Nothing.
We searched the surrounding, very rugged, terrain for 11 hours. The drive home that night was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I went back over early the next morning and checked in with some near-ish cattle farms in hopes she'd smelled stock and gone to them.
We got escorted into the nearby old stone quarry and searched for signs there. We drove from road to road and house to house and Reg talked to anyone she could find and called so many people. We re-walked and walked and walked all over the hillside, as far down as it was safe to go.
This was not a "walk in the woods". If she'd gone down, the elevation drop is 300' and at best maybe a 45 degree angle. Much of it is a cliff...straight down. The underbrush was thick and the area is full of old stone walls. It was unlikely she could get past all that, but after searching along the upper side of the hill for two days and all the nearby open farm ground as best we could, Tim decided to climb down into the Lower Howard's Creek.
It was definitely worth a shot, heck, anything was, but by this point I had very little hope left. It was getting dark and closing in on what would be her second cold night in the wilderness. A wilderness full of coyotes and bobcats and sometimes other predators.
He called to let me know when he gotten down into the creek bed and I waited at John and Reg's. I was exhausted. I was broken. Tilly was with me, but she, too, was upset and miserable. She ate her dinner, but wouldn't stop walking around and kept sniffing pretty close to where I'd last seen Kate. I decided to make one more trip down into the woods.
I once again crawled under, through and over and slipped and slid down loose rocks and dirt. I'd maybe made it a quarter of the way down, zig zagging left and right, when my phone dinged with a text message. I pulled it out of my pocket...and there was the picture of Tim...with Kate. She was still alive and he had her in his arms!
I don't really remember scrambling up the hill or, honestly, even driving to the point where he was going to bring her out. He ended up carrying her nearly a half mile, through water in some parts up to his chest. When he'd try to set her down to walk, she'd turn around and try to go back where he'd found her. Definitely disoriented and maybe a little shocky.
The vet told us some things to immediately check and do for her before we got her to the clinic. Luckily I hadn't given all the food I had packed for her to Tilly and she gobbled it up. I'd assumed being next to the creek that she'd had plenty to drink, but when we got to the vet clinic, her blood work was not great and she needed IV fluids.
She went back to the clinic this morning and stayed for several hours while they ran more fluids, but by mid afternoon they said she was in good shape and ready to come home. She is laying at my feet as I type this. It is truly a miracle.
This is just the highlights of the story. Don't try to imagine the rest or what she (and we) went through or what could have happened... I've done enough of that for all of us and I've never cried so hard in my whole life.
I want to offer up a huge thank you to everyone who helped bring Kate home, especially Auntie Reg and her friends and neighbors.
Our friends who came from two counties away and gave up their entire Sunday to help search and then drive me home that night.
The god of old dogs (and maybe sheep and cats) and their angels who I'm sure gave Kate a strong "lie down" so she stayed put when she hit the creek.
And to 'the old man of the creek and rivers' who had the vision to go down the creek...and carry her back to me. I guess all that fishing finally paid off ;-). Today is our anniversary. I'd like to say we make a good team, but honestly, Saint Tim is always carrying us all.
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