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WARNING: VERY long post.
Well........
I rushed home fast as I could. Still, I was too late. I pulled into the driveway and hit the remote for the garage door. "Sophie! Sooooopphhhhiiiieee!" No big doggy smile or flying wave of welcome. Sophie Bangtail had run in terror. She'd heard the thunder 10 miles away and knew it was coming to get her. Through the dog door, tearing across the yard, ripping and clawing at the chainlink fence, ignoring the stinging electric wires meant to keep her safe-she was gone. Mom was out there somewhere and only Mom could keep her safe.
I ran upstairs to check the phone. No message from a good samaritan. Back to the basement, grab a sheet to protect the car seat, reverse up the drive, go....which way? Left, this time?
Windows down, 10 mph down one street and up another. Thirty minutes of screaming myself hoarse, causing neighbors to start in surprise, laugh, shake their heads, nod in understanding. Sophie was gone again. When I could no longer yell loud enough to be heard outside the car, I headed back home.
Finally! A message on the answering machine. "Hey! My name's Jerry (cell phone noise) ....."ar"..."and I've got a pooch here. Pretty scared. I'm on Scurlok. In my shop. Come on down and get her." Jerry who? Listen 2 more times. Scurlock. Scurlock. Haven't I seen Scurlock? Wasn't it way on the other side of the wetlands, through the woods? Sophie had never been more than three blocks away, always tucked into someone's basement, backyard, playing with the kids, dish of water, cookie, cracker, afternoon playdate.
I dug out my cell phone. Hate those things. Running back downstairs, down into the basement, dialing my husband at work. "She's gone. I couldn't understand the name. Jerry. Farr, Parr? Something. He didn't leave a phone number. He lives on Scurlock. Please pull up a map and call me back. I'm heading for where I think that is, but I'm not sure. Then, go through phone directories and look for someone with a similar name on Scurlock. Call me on the cell phone." He's a nice man, but he tends to ask questions in an emergency. I hung up and jumped back in the car.
I eased down the county road, slowing for each street. No Scurlock. Coming to a dead end, I turned left onto a larger, busier county highway. Still crawling, I had a line of cars behind me when I spotted Scurlock and quickly hit a short left turn signal onto the bumpy dirt road, now a giant puddle from the sudden rain after a month long drought.
I'd gone from my comfy subdivision (smoothly paved streets, nice houses with nice brown lawns-thanks to the water restrictions, next door to a busy city, interstate right down the road) and into Tobacco Road. I was instantly nervous. The falling down houses, yards full of junk, old furniture, old cars, were all posted with "No trespassing!" and "Private Property" signs. And here I was, windows down, creeping through the mud, and not knowing where one private property started and another ended. I spotted a man standing on a makeshift porch in front of his trailer and called out to him, asking if he'd seen a dog or knew a name similar to what I'd heard on the phone. He answered pleasantly enough. He'd not seen the dog, but a man named Parker lived "around the corner and on the right".
The "corner" was a curve in the dirt road that curled around a muddy duck pond. I saw a large shed made of sheets of tin held together by spider webs and promises. In front of it stood a boy of about 10 or 11. I called out, "Have you seen a big black and white Border Collie?" He stopped plucking at the blue-dyed spikes of hair he'd been playing with and said, "We got a black dog." I waited, but he outlasted me. I tried again. "Is that black dog yours, or did it come to you in the storm? Did your dad call someone to come get the dog?" Big careless shrug. "I'm going to turn into your drive to talk to your dad. Okay?" Bare nod.
I turned into the bare patch at the side of the road and followed it to the "workshop". There, at the back corner of the structure was a big mud puddle. In the middle of that puddle was my Sophie, tied by a rope around her neck to a sagging tin door. She was shivering and cowed. My smarty pants, know-it-all Sophie dog. When she saw me, she lifted her head a little and fixed her eyes on me, afraid that I'd disappear if she took her eyes off me.
I got out of the car and a man came from inside the building. "I wondered was you gone come get her. I thought she's after my chickens or ducks, way she come through that field. She 'uz covered with blackberry brambles and sticker burrs. I went to get her and saw she was just scared. She was real friendly. Then, I seen that collar (something unusual about a bushy-tailed, 50 lb dog wearing a baby blue rhinestone collar?) and told my boy 'Somebody takes good care of this dog. She ain't no stray.' Then, I found them tags and your phone number and give you a call."
I crawled into the mud puddle and held Sophie while the man talked. A young man in his late teens appeared with a Bowie knife that was longer than he was tall. He grabbed Sophie's rope and whacked a piece of it off, then cut the part that was around Sophie's neck. He said, "You want a piece to pull her on?" I shook my head. Sophie leaned against me and tucked her red/brown, once black head under my arm.
I listened to the man cite all his great accomplishments in life as we eased toward the car. Finally, we were safe in the car. No, I couldn't just go on down the road and get out. It was a dead end. I needed to go back the way I came. "Again, thank you for taking care of Sophie. We're both grateful." We were gone.
In the basement garage, once again, I grabbed bottles of shampoo and ran for the nearest bathtub. Sophie jumped in while I peeled my muddy clothes off and threw them in a pile on the floor.
In the middle of the second bath, my husband came home and was immediately dispatched for the gallon jug of shampoo. Those little bottles weren't getting us anywhere. Then, I sent him down with a can of saddle soap to wipe down the car. After Sophie's third bath, then my own shower, we were ready to talk.
Fences won't hold her when she's afraid. Nothing affects her like thunder. Searcing the web, we kept running across behavior modification articles. We called our vet for his input: No, there's no fence for this. She should be crated in the garage and she'll eventually associate that with safety and she can hide in there. But, I don't want my dog to have just a safe place to be hysterical. I want her to adjust and come to accept storms as things that happen, but won't hurt her. And, I'd rather not crate a dog who won't soil anything inside the house or destroy things in fear and anger. Back to the articles on behavior modification.
Now, armed with the many scary clips from this site and the knowledge of how to use them, I'm about to have my first try at taming the monster that frightens my dog. We're going to watch tv, have a nice brushing, and ignore the rolling thunder playing softly in the background. Eventually, the tv will be off and the thunder will be as loud as any storm we've ever heard. Please wish us luck and hope we reach that point with calm enjoyment of a good brushing and good company.
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted you to understand how much stress and emotion we want to overcome with your assistance.
Thanks to you all. You're more help than you realized.
janilee

Nice account, really enjoyed reading it, thank you.
What escapes my mentality is why I ended up thinking of Conrad's Heart of Darkness (?). Anyway, hope she'll get better

great story, indeed!
hope your dog will get better,
and inform us about her reaction to "not real sound"...
will it really work?

I loved the story too, have you thought of recording & submitting it? I wish there were more long stories on this site, in all languages.

But janilee, next time your dog gets lost in a storm, remember to record Jerry reciting his accomplishments.

Thanks for your kind responses. I made a continuous thunder CD from my downloaded treasure and we played it in surround mode with the television using its speakers. The thunder was so low that, unless there was a patch of silence on the tv, my husband and I didn't notice it. I called Sophie to me and had her sit on the floor with me. I brushed her lightly and chatted to her in a normal pleasant voice. Still, she knew something was going on. She let me brush her for awhile, but she kept rolling her eyes at me. Finally, she stood up and paced, looking for what was causing her unease. My husband tried playing with her, but she was uncomfortable. Though the CD was over in about 30 minutes, she continued to be uneasy on into the evening. We had mild real thunder the next two days. Her reaction hasn't yet changed much, but she did go bark at it on the second day, which I haven't seen before. It makes me wonder if she is thinking less or running and more of thunder as being something she can challenge? I don't like putting her through this discomfort, but it seems necessary if we're to get over this phobia. I believe that it will, eventually, be very beneficial. Why am I so sure? I'm an agorophobe and never made a lot of progress until meeting my husband. Trust in him allowed me to slowly work my way into the world. I try to give Sophie the help my husband gave me.
As for the writing, I write as a hobby. Though an editor has expressed interest in my work, I lack the confidence to create one cohesive block that would allow itself to be called a book. The compliments here are very important to me. You don't know me, this forum is not about writing, and I didn't solicit comments on it; that makes your input Golden. So, thanks for yet another benefit of this forum.
I will report Sophie's progress. Thanks for your interest.
janilee

i appreciate your writing style, thank you for the read! i wish the best of luck to you, sophie, and your husband in getting her more comfortable to the unique experience of storms. i'd love to read more/bigger pieces of writing by you, once you do, because anybody can do that if they have the effort... confidence will come with time, but you can encourage its development and strength by being honest with yourself as well as courageous by putting yourself through often unfamiliar situations that will teach and change you a great deal!

BEST OF LUCK!

no disrespect but i see to many of these story type writers posts on just about every web page. my personal feelings are that you should keep your posts about samples or music.

i got half way down the first paragragh and noticed nothing about either samples or music or sound design.

again, absolutely no disrespect meant at all. so do take my apologies if you think i'm picking on you-i'm not.

Really Nice account, really enjoyed reading it, thank you.

Ya!