Talk about a crazy week; proof why you never give up

Phil Cobb

If winter and the associated lack of sunshine were not enough, throw in about three straight days of heavy fog.

I always tell people that the reason why we have such crappy winter weather is to make us appreciate the nice days we have in Spring, Summer, and Fall.

Man … am I going to appreciate those days this year.

Let me tell you about the week I had a couple of weeks ago.

I’m pretty sure, like many people, I suffer from seasonal depression anyway, but the recent fog we experienced throughout the region seemed to intensify the effects.

Usually, when we get home, we have two very excited boxer dogs waiting eagerly in our driveway.

It’s probably because they are literally the most spoiled canines on the planet, and because they genuinely believe themselves to be human, and expect nothing less than for all the same conveniences to be afforded them.

In short, when we’re home, they get to come inside.

Go ahead and judge us. We fully admit to our weakness.

Duke, our male, is four years old.

He can pretty much hold his own against anything he might come up against in the nearby woods.

However, I’d hate to know what might happen if he ever got face-to-face with a bobcat.

So far as I know, that’s never happened, and I hope it never does.

Marley, on the other hand, is a 5-month-old female.

I wouldn’t put her up against a wet paper bag.

Not only is she young, and small, she’s clumsy, and has shown very few signs of intelligence, not to mention survival skills.

She typically stays pretty close to Duke, so I figure he’ll protect her in most situations, but that was not to be the case on this particularly foggy Wednesday night.

The dogs didn’t greet Chaundee when she pulled in the driveway like they usually do, but that’s not entirely unusual.

Normally, they’ll come running shortly after, though.

Not this time.

An hour went by … then two.

Usually they will hear us making noise around the house and come running.

Sometimes if they are gone for a while, we’ll honk the car horn to get their attention.

Nothing was working this time.

Darkness set in, and so did worry.

This was unusual.

There’s no telling where they might have gone.

I’ve had neighbors before tell me they’ve seen them more than a couple of miles from home and didn’t think anything of it.

But never after dark.

They were always home before dark because they knew they could get in the house.

We drove all around the “block,” as my grandparents use to call a section of land.

We honked and called out the windows, but never saw a clue.

All the while, the fog was getting worse and worse.

We figured maybe they had wondered off and become confused by the fog and got lost.

I also thought they’d probably be waiting at the house when we got back.

No such luck.

We went to bed that night, thinking they’d eventually find their way home.

About 4 a.m., I hear scratching at the door.

I didn’t even get up, because I knew they would be covered in mud, and I wasn’t going to give them a bath at that hour.

But at least I knew they had made it home.

Or so I thought.

Minutes later I heard Duke barking strangely.

Chaundee and I agreed we had never heard him bark quite that way.

When I got up to see why, I realized Marley wasn’t there.

I think he must have been trying to call her, or to let us know something was wrong.

She never did show up that night, but when we left for work the next day we were fairly confident Duke would find her during the day and they’d be back home that evening.

That’s when the fog really got bad.

Our daughters, Kelsey and Trinity, got to the house first and let me know that Marley still wasn’t home.

I was driving home from work around 7 p.m. and could barely see.

All of a sudden, a large buck deer appeared from the fog.

Wham!

I barely got my foot on the brake before I nailed him broadside with the front of my pickup.

I didn’t even stop for fear that someone would fail to see me in the fog.

There was surprisingly little visual damage to the truck considering the impact and the $4,500 estimate to get it fixed.

Despite the collision, when I got home I immediately began to look for Marley.

The visibility had gotten down to almost zero, and it began to rain.

The four of us searched with flashlights in the immediate area around the house as long as we could.

That’s about the time Chaundee informed me she had heard a pack of coyotes the night before, and that they had been making some crazy noises.

I resigned to the idea that’s probably what had happened to her.

That was night No. 2.

Four more days went by.

We had posted that she was missing on Facebook, and we had many people praying for her safe return.

Then Monday I ran an ad in the Daily Forum at Chaundee’s request.

I told her I didn’t think it would do much good at that point.

Then Monday afternoon I got a call.

Justin Moore of Bearcat Lumber had made a delivery to the University Farm, and noticed a strange dog running around.

When he got back to the lumber yard, he told Brent Begley about the dog he had seen.

According to Moore, Begley held up the newspaper and said something like, “There’s an ad right here that says she’s missing.”

Six days had gone by.

I never thought we’d see her again.

She was scared to death, cold, hungry, and shivering when I walked into the barn to find her.

She also had a pretty severe cut that went almost completely around her neck.

Apparently, she had been caught in a snare trap.

Whoever caught her would have had to let her go … there’s no way she would have gotten out of that trap on her own.

So, to whoever that was, thank you.

To Justin, we can’t thank you enough.

And to all those who prayed for her to make it home … it worked.

The way I see it, there are a couple of lessons to learn from this story:

1. Never give up.

2. Newspaper advertising works.

Phil Cobb is the owner and publisher of the Maryville Daily Forum and The Post.