Late Nite Adventure (or Finding Molly)

There a couple of things you need to know before you dive into this post. First, we have a nine year old dog named Molly who is, basically, 5.5 pounds of white hair. Second, if Molly really wants to, she can get out of the backyard. Third, we have an alarm system on our house and every time you open a door, the alarm keypads go "beep-beep-beep-beep." There is a keypad in our bedroom so we can hear it if a door opens at night. I think that will do it for set up.

So last nite, about 12:30, I am sound asleep, as all normal people are. Adam, who is clearly not normal, was still awake. However, I am awoken by key pad going "beep-beep-beep-beep" repeatedly, like 5 times in row. My first thought is "What in tarnation is Adam doing?" (though the phrasing might have been a little different). I haul myself out of bed and go into the living room to see exactly what my husband it up to.....and he is nowhere to be found.

"Adam?" I yell.

"I can't find Molly," he responds, slightly frantic, from upstairs "and I have been searching for 30 minutes!"

So I pick up the bag of dog treats and start calling for Molly and shaking the bag of treats. Normally, this is guaranteed to get Molly to run into the kitchen. This time I got nothing.

Finally, Adam comes back downstairs and we go outside. We search the backyard calling for Molly. We go out into the front yard and call for Molly. No response. If she got out of the backyard, she could be anywhere.

"Did you let Molly outside while I was putting to Andrew to bed?" Adam asks.

"No. Was she inside the house when you took him upstairs?"

"Yes," says Adam. "She followed me upstairs."

"Then she has to be inside," I say. Now, Molly is 9 years old and I am terribly worried that something has happened to her and she is unconscious somewhere in the house and at 5.5 pounds she can be very hard to spot (especially if she has burrowed under the laundry). So, Adam and I start a very thorough room by room search. We move couch cushions to see if she slipped behind them, we look behind the curtains, in the pantry. She is not in the back part of the house.

We head into the front part of the house and, as we pass the staircase, very faintly, I hear Molly scratching at a door somewhere. "She's upstairs," I tell Adam and we go rushing up the stairs.

Strange thing about Molly, she will bark at any one or any thing that dares pass by the house, she will bark to be let in the back door, she barks repeatedly when we come home, but shut her behind a door inside the house and she will not bark. Adam finally found her. She had followed him into Andrew's bathroom and, apparently, decided to check out the linen closet, where she had been shut in for over 4 hours.

She was very happy to see us. Next time she goes missing, I will remember to check the linen closet.