Stray dogs don't care ...

I miss the house I grew up in. It was a great house in the middle of a bajillion acres. My great-grandpa built the house at the turn of the 20th century. It was small, but perfect. The house and the land had been in my family for forever. There were fields all around, bordered by a forest line.
One day, I woke up with my sister and I was going to build an iguana house. It might have been a ferret house, I don't really recall what type of house I was going to be building. Regardless of the type of house, I went out into the barn and started working on it. I was probably about 7 or 8. My dog Blackjack, the best dog that ever lived, took off across the field and was chasing some stray dogs. Laine and I decided to follow. We followed past the tree line for about 2 gazillion acres into the field behind the tree line.

Finally, the stray dogs disappeared out of sight, so it was just me, Laine and Blackjack out in the field of despair. We were so tired at this point, and lost. We had no idea which direction we had gone in because those crazy stray dogs didn't know where they were going, either. We gave up. We were going to die in this field. We had been out there for 6 hours already!

"We're going to die!" 

"Mom and Dad will NEVER find our bodies out here!"

"I love you Laine!"

"I love you Jase!"

Then, a ray of hope. A helicopter! We were saved!!

"They sent out a search party! Hooray!"

"We're going to stay alive!"

As we were watching the helicopter soar above us, our little hearts filled with hope. It had been 18 hours at this point. There we were, laying in the middle of the field, flopping around, too tired to go on, gasping because we were so incredibly thirsty after this whole thing. We watched desperately as the helicopter soared on, not seeming to notice our tired, dying bodies waving for them. We had to go on.


We walked to the other tree line - this one was behind that second field of despair we were in. We walked through the woods, barefoot and all. We finally came upon our second ray of hope: A friend of the family's house.  I had stepped on a thorn and was in a lot of pain. I was going to die a miserable death until we saw the house, I had accepted my fate. Death of starvation, dehydration and thorn. Our slow path toward death had already lasted 22 hours, so the house was our last chance.
We ran up to the house, screaming like wild animals at the thought of our rescue! We were so unbelievably happy! Until, that is, nobody answered the door. 

"Nobody's home!"

"We're still going to die!"

"Boooo-hoooo booo-hoooo sob sob sob"

We decided that maybe they were just taking a nap. So we did the only logical thing at that point. We crawled through the doggy-door (I know you're thinking how smart we must have been!). We were little and fit quite easily through the flap. To our despair, they weren't taking a nap. They were nowhere to be found. We felt a little awkward breaking into someone's home, even though we were in such dire circumstances. Had we not felt so awkward, we would have picked up the phone and called Mom and Dad. Hindsight's 20/20.

We had to continue on. All hope was lost, but we kept on going. I knew the road that the friend's house sat on. My mom's best friend lived on that road, too. So I told Laine we had to keep going.

"Come on, the house is this way, we're not far! We can make it! DON'T DIE ON ME NOW!"

Here we were, walking around the rural area, surrounded by fields and a few scattered houses. Just me, Laine and Blackjack. Blackjack didn't seem to mind, I think he secretly knew that we weren't going to die, despite our best efforts to convince him otherwise. In fact, I think he knew where we were the whole time. But despite how great of a dog he was (literally, the GREATEST DOG EVER), he never did learn how to speak human, therefore could not tell us which way to go.

I finally figured out we were going the wrong way. THE WRONG WAY! After 37 hours of being lost through fields of despair and thorns, doggy doors and forests, it was the WRONG WAY! All hope was lost of finding some way to get home via the help of people we actually knew; we decided to stop at a house. A big, 2-story house with a front porch and a cat. 

I mustered up the ability to knock on the door, despite not being allowed to talk to strangers. We needed grown-up help. A nice woman answered the door. I'm sure she was shocked at what she saw. Two little girls, completely filthy from head to toe. No shoes, ripped clothes, probably had leaves and dirt in our hair. It had been a long, perilous journey through the fields and forests of despair.

She gave us some lemonade and let us call Mom and Dad. Blackjack chased the cat up the tree. Mom and Dad came to the rescue, completely embarrassed by the whole fiasco. We jumped in the car, but Blackjack wouldn't get in. He took off towards home, and showed up about 1/2 hour after us.

Once we got home, we realized it had been less than 3 hours. 

Moral of the story: Stray dogs running through a field don't really care if you're following them or if you get lost. Don't do it.