[celstu1]

Ugh, last night my boyfriend and I went to run some errands and out to eat. It was 90 and sunny out, clear skies! My brothers dog, who is a almost 12 year old choco Lab/Pitbull mix was in the backyard. She opened the sliding glass door and was hanging out in the room off the house. When we left, we went to bring her to the garage, but saw she was pretty comfortable where she was so we decided to leave her there.
While we were out thunder storms rolled in sooo quickly. We were out for only 2 hours. We got home and went to get her from the room she was in and she broke out, broke out of 2 fenced in yards and was gone! We were calling her and calling her. Usually she comes in like 3 minutes. But nothing. I was PANICKING! My boyfriend drove off to try to find her, I called the police dispatch to report her missing and to see if she was already picked up. Nothing! I finally called my brother and told him she was missing for real.

Well a woman finally called the number on her tag, my sister-in-law's number, and they called me. Brandy (bro's dog) made it almost a mile away. The woman said she was soooo sweet. She was going ON and ON and ON to me on the phone w/o giving me her info at all for awhile. Finally I got her address and went to pick up Brandy. She told me she was concerned Brandy didn't drink any water, she did feed her though and she goobled it up and was about to give her a bath. (Brandy is a really smelly dog for some reason, shes been to the vet for it, but there is nothing wrong with her, she just smells like a garbage truck ALL the time). The woman went on and on, making it sound like Brandy was abused and neglected and we purposely left her out for hours and hours and days and days in severe thunderstorms! I had to stop her and say Brandy eats like that 5 mins after she eats her dinner, she always gobbles food like that. Then I had to tell her she got out of a room IN the house and through 2 fences to get out of our house/yard. And the dirty, well who knows how she got a mile away from our house, through thunderstorms and rain! Yeah she's dirty! Geezzz I already felt TERRIBLE, but there is one thing for sure.... Brandy is a well taken care of dog in my house, no doubt about it.

I was almost in tears and in complete panic mode when I couldn't find her within 15 mins of getting home. I'm just really glad we have her back!

So this morning I go to let her out of the garage to go potty and she can barely walk. Shes got arthritis in her back legs and in the mornings she's a bit stiff, but nothing major and then shes fine all day. Well this morning she was limping/hobbling, could barely stand up or walk. She did go out to pee and came right back in and laid down licking her back legs and sniffing them like 'what the heck is this'. I knew she was in pain today. I gave her an aspirin wrapped in cheese. I hope that helps. She walked pretty far on her own for a big old lady! I hope the pain subsides today with rest and the aspirin. My poor baby girl. I HATE seeing them get old. It's totally heartbreaking!