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Diary of a Bad Dog Mom
The social media and community miracles that brought my lost dog home…twice.
The first time Dexter ran away was the night I moved into the Valley. I knew the name of my street, the park, and I knew there was a big scary intersection a few blocks South, but when I recorded my hysterical Instagram story, the cross streets I gave were in the opposite direction of where I had finally lost sight of him. I was wearing slippers. When he slipped between my legs that night in the dead of Covid lockdown, I was on my way out the door to return the U-haul truck that remained parked in my driveway for hours as I ran as fast as I could, weaving the streets into knots after my newly adopted best friend. To him, I was still a stranger. To me, he was a scared rescue dog who knew life on the streets better than I did. That night, we learned for the first time since I adopted him just how much we needed each other.
I don’t remember everything that took place over those next five days, but I remember how quickly my friends arrived with Pitfire Pizza, laptops and hotspots to flood every social networking app with photos of him. I didn’t have many yet. Flyers were printed before morning and the posts shared and spread like wildfire, yet I was still missing the most important tool for finding him — hope.