From the moment we met her, she was a spitfire. (Can you see the pink on her nose? As she got older, the pink turned to black.)
This picture was taken the day we brought her home. We joked that she never napped again!
Through the years, we've gone on many adventures together.
A few years ago, she retired and moved to the midwest.
Now she spends her days lounging around and antagonizing the boys. (These are all pictures of Jeremiah!)
Jeremiah has grown quite fond of her too. He makes sure she has food and water, and he likes to take her outside.
Hanna has always been an inside dog. She is a people-lover (she's jumped in strangers' cars before). She doesn't know how to act around other dogs (or cats, rabbits, horses, grasshoppers...). She's allergic to corn. She's terrified of thunderstorms. In dog years, Hanna is about 65 now. The hair on her face is turning gray. She has developed arthritis and often limps. Making the trek to our mailbox tires her out for the rest of the day.
One day in June, I had to run some errands in town. During a thunderstorm. I left Hanna home alone for just over an hour. Lightning, thunder, and very heavy rain. When I returned, I found the door to the house wide open. Hanna was gone.
Josh came home from work to start searching. He walked for three hours on the property to our north where we thought she would have gone. Nothing. He drove down the country roads near our house. Nothing.
The night was long. An inside dog, out there, all alone. The what ifs played over and over.
I made missing signs with her picture and Josh taped them to our mailbox and a couple stop signs on his way to work the next morning.
After the boys and I had breakfast, I decided I had to go out searching for her. We loaded up the car and headed out. My goal was to put a missing sign on the other end of the dirt road where Josh had hung one of the signs.
I'd stop at clearings in the trees and yell her name. I drove slowly every time I came to a house, thinking she might have found a friend. I showed her picture to a few people I met on the road. Jeremiah sat in his carseat saying, "Hanna!" over and over. It was heart-wrenching.
After an hour, I still hadn't found that stop sign. There was a Y in the road. Micah was getting fussy. I looked at the GPS. To get home, I needed to turn left.
We crossed a bridge. There was an abandoned house. Then a mobile home. A dog ran out to the car barking. Jeremiah barked from the back seat. I said, "Yeah, a dog. But it's not Hanna." As I got even with the mobile home, I saw that they had a yard full of dogs - probably six or so. And laying on the top step of the porch - was Hanna!
I parked in the middle of the road. I got out and called her name. She lifted her head and ran to me. She was limping. I hugged her right there in the road. She whimpered as I petted her. And I cried happy tears.
"Is that yer dog?" a man asked me. "She showed up here last night. At first I thought it was one of mine, but then realized it wasn't. I thought, 'Huh! New dog!'" Sorry, sir. This is definitely our dog. Our daughter. "Where's she live?" he asked. When I told him, he got a puzzled look on his face and said, "Wow! She ran a long way!"
I lifted her into the car. Jeremiah shouted, "Hanna!" I marked the spot on the GPS and we headed home.
As the crow flies, Hanna was 1.6 miles from home. The terrain is hilly and densely wooded. The grass is about chest high. She would have crossed multiple barbed wire fences, a dirt road, and a river. During a thunderstorm.
That night, I took Josh to show him where she was. It is 7.5 miles by car. He showed me where he had turned around when he was searching (about half of the distance to where she was). He said he never would have gone as far as I had.
Hanna slept for nearly 24 hours straight. She didn't eat or drink much at all. She had several ticks and a wound that seemed like it was from a barbed wire fence. After about 48 hours though, she was back to her old self.
Nowadays, Hanna gets a few extra treats. And we deadbolt the door.
