[JadeD]

I know all about a Christmas runaway! We celebrate Christmas on Dec 24th because that is the day my husband has always seen his 2 older children for Christmas per the divorce agreement and so even as they are adults we have stuck with that day.

So, everyone is arriving for Christmas and while people are carrying in Christmas presents my oldest Yorkie snuck out the door. No big deal, I take him off leash there often. We are on vacation though and not at home, but staying there for a week. I watch him go sniff a tree and lift his leg and I call him to come back in and he starts walking around the house. I go and get my shoes and coat and go out to get him only he is gone! We are in the country and the yard is HUGE and I can not find him. I go back to the house and yell to my daughter that I can't find him. She comes out a few minutes later and we are circling the house in different directions hoping to catch him and see him and calling for him.

I start going up the road to the neighbors (relatives) where I walk him fairly frequently and ask them to grab him if they see him and call me and I will come get him immediately. They tell me they will grab some food if they see him and get him to come in the house (he goes in there house with me regularly) and they will call me. Their grandsons are visiting so they go outside to look for him as I am leaving. I start heading back up the road and there is my Yorkie!!! Right along the side of the road. I call to him and tell him how happy I am to see him. I get almost to him and he takes of running!!!! He will be 10 in February and he takes off running right up the road. The mail truck is coming up the road and they see him running and me chasing him so they stop and he runs right in front of them, with me having to run right in front of them. I yell my apologies to them. The thing is I could not run 2 years ago at all. Not 3 steps of running. Then I started training for a 5K and so now I can run, but I am slower than a turtle running through molasses and this yorkie and I run the same speed. So here we go past the house we are staying at with me 10 feet behind him and not gaining on him!

So, 1/2 a mile later he slows down and I am really feeling this as I did not warm up first or anything but I push myself to keep going and I manage to finally catch him. I have been running through the mud with my Christmas clothes on! He ran straight through every mud puddle he could find. I scoop him up and hug him, just happy he isn't going to be lost in an area he doesn't know well and I carry him back and I put him in the camper we sleep in because he is too muddy to take in the house and we were almost ready to sit down and eat when he ran out the door.

I went and got him after we ate and brought him into the house (the camper is heated).

The same dog scared me on Halloween too! We were at a friends house and a ton of people were coming in and out and I could not find him anywhere. He was finally found hiding in a bedroom, but this was after I searched outside in the freezing rain for him. I really need to leave him somewhere safe on holiday's.