We finally got around to naming our new dog. We named her Bonnie Lass Waterfield.
And this morning, Bonnie Lass went on a very terrifying adventure.
I took her for her morning walk, and we walked toward the outskirts of the woods behind the apartment building. We have walked past them several times before because she likes the smells of the forest. It's definitely the coon hound in her.
And, like usual, Bonnie got herself tangled around a tree. I kept tugging on her retractable leash from my side of the tree, but she kept trying to come from her side. I stepped up to the tree to help her, and when I got to her, her leash had somehow gotten hooked on a tree branch, and come off of her harness.
At first, I didn't think anything about it, and even mentioned out loud that it came undone.
But then, something clicked in Bonnie's head and it occurred to her that she was no longer captive. In other words, she was free. Suddenly, she decided to embrace this freedom. She started slowly walking away, hot on the trail of something near the edge of the woods. I started yelling for her to come back, but she wouldn't. I kept clapping, like I do when she does something bad, and screaming, "No!" and "Bad!" but she just wouldn't listen to me. It seemed like much longer in the moment, but it was only a few seconds of her walking further and further away. And then, she decided to just live her dreams and she ran into the woods!
I knew what I had to do. But I really didn't want to. I wasn't dressed to go traipsing into the woods, hell I wasn't even dressed hardly to take her for a walk! I had on my pajama bottoms, flip flops, and not even a bra, just my housecoat over the shirt I slept in.
But I did what I had to do.
I took my first step into the woods.
For as long as we've lived here, I've been somewhat scared of these woods. Not in the serial killer way, but in the creepy snake and other creepy crawler sort of way. I was completely mortified the entire time I was in the woods that I was going to get bit by something in the woods and die.
Luckily, at least at first, she kept about 10 feet in front of me. I could see her past several trees and hear her dog tags on her collar when I couldn't see her. But suddenly, I couldn't see her, and then I couldn't hear her, either. I kept screaming and calling her name, but she wouldn't come. I continued walking in the last direction I saw her going, losing my shoes several times along the way, screaming for her. For several minutes, there was no sign of her. It was like she had disappeared.
I immediately started to think about the next step. Flyers and prayers. We hadn't even changed her dog tag yet, and she still had her former owner's number on them. People couldn't even contact us if they found her. What would we do? This was all my fault, and I definitely felt guilty. We'd only had this dog for 6 days and now I had lost her. Man did I suck.
Then, I saw her.
I kept calling, much more frantically now, and scrambled my way to her across the 30 or so feet she was away from me.
I managed to catch up with her before she could fun away from me again, and let my frustration out on her. I hurried to attach the lonely leash I had been carrying through the woods back on her harness, and proceeded to spank her. I didn't hurt her, but she knew she had done something very bad and that I wasn't happy with her one bit.
I looked around, and luckily we were behind a house that is on the street on the way to the complex we live in. I hauled her out of the woods and we made tracks back to the apartment.
The whole ordeal had eaten up about 30 minutes, and I still had to get up to the apartment, make Justin's lunch, get Justin up, and take him to work. Somehow, I managed to do all that.
Bonnie made no mistake the rest of the day that I was very unhappy with her. But, eventually, I came around and wasn't sore with her anymore. I really hope she never does anything like this again, I nearly had a heart attack this morning!
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