The Harrowing but Ultimately Heartwarming Tale of How I Lost and Got Back My Best Friend
Champ and me
About a month and a half ago I lost my best friend when my beloved dog Ghostface lost his battle with Lymphoma just before his tenth birthday. I was devastated. Ghostface may have been angry and loud and aggressive and hostile towards my children but I loved him beyond words all the same.
My wife knew how despondent I was and how much I love animals so we went to Alabama and got a six pound Yorkie named Champion about a month ago that changed my life dramatically for the better and instantly became my new best friend.
At the risk of hyperbole, Champion is arguably the greatest animal that has ever lived. He’s adorable. He’s sweet. He’s cuddly. He’s loving. I like to call him my furry little Anti-Depressant because he makes me so happy.
We’re still at that honeymoon stage where sometimes I just gaze lovingly at him, overcome with love and adoration. It’s hard to overstate how crazy I am about that little dog.
On Friday night I was taking Champion on our nightly walk. It was a miserable evening weather-wise, dark and drizzling and uncomfortable. I went to the gas station to buy some cashews.
I was holding Champion, who is generally very well behaved and gentle but as we left the store he unexpectedly leaped out of my arms. I tried to grab him and pick him up but in the process I accidentally pressed the button on the leash that opens it.
Champion landed on the ground with a horrible thud, no longer attached to his tether. I could see a look of stark existential terror on his furry little face and then he fucking bolted.
He took off. I ran as fast as I possibly could after him but it was no use. He ran into the night and was gone.
We’d only had Champion for about a month and now because of a stupid, split second mistake on my part we would probably never see him again. He might get hit by a car. He might starve to death. He might get eaten by a larger animal. And all because of a tiny mistake on my part.
I was overcome with dread. How could I be so fucking stupid and careless?
Just when it seemed like things could not get worse, I ran into a branch that knocked off my glasses. I called my wife in a state of panic to tell her that, in an impressive feat of ineptitude and incompetence, I had somehow managed to lose my beloved new dog AND my glasses within the same ten minute stretch.
I eventually found my glasses but I could not find Champion. He was gone. We live in a suburb with very few lights, a whole lot of green spaces and a lot of trees so finding a six pound brown and black dog that loves to burrow in tucked-away places looked like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.
But I had to look. It was all I could do. So I wandered our neighborhood for a few hours, feeling more and more hopeless with each passing moment.
I can say without hyperbole that that night was one of the worst nights of my life. I was convinced that I would never see Champion again. Losing Ghostface was hard enough. Losing TWO beloved Yorkies in a matter of two months was seemingly more than I could bear.
But what could I do? My tiny little dog was lost in the dark vastness of Alpharetta and all I could do was hope and pray and take the steps you’re supposed to take when you lose an animal in 2022.
So I woke up bright and early that Saturday morning and signed up for Next Door so I could let my neighbors know that my dog was lost and I was VERY eager to get him back.
Then I once again began the hopeless-seeming process of trying to find a tiny little dog whose light brown fur is, unfortunately, the color of August leaves, rendering him more or less invisible from a distance.
It was just as hopeless as before but around ten o clock I got a phone call.
“Did you lose a little dog in a blue vest?” the stranger on the other line asked.
“Oh my god yes! Oh my god yes!” I responded.
The good samaritan had a little dog matching Champion’s description stumble into its back yard in the early morning.
Now it was wet and cold and shivering but definitely still around.
Champion had ended up about a mile down the road. He wandered into a neighbor’s garage and my wife and older son Declan went there to retrieve him but by that time he’d gotten spooked and had ran into a different backyard.
Thankfully some laborers spotted him and we got him back.
We got him back! We got Champ back! I thought he was gone for good and that what has already been an extremely difficult time for me personally and professionally was about to get much, much worse but instead we got our beloved dog back for keeps and are doing everything in our power to ensure that something like that never happens again.
Champion’s regrettable night out was utterly out of character for him. He’s never gotten off the chain or ran away before. So for him to get off the chain AND run away as fast as he possibly could under some of the worst possible circumstances was shocking.
If we had lost Champion, as I imagined we had, it would have been traumatic on so many levels. There would be the loss of Champion, first and foremost. That would be massive. But my already paranoid and fatalistic brain would have interpreted the night’s events as further incontrovertible proof that the universe hates me, I’m doomed and if I make even minor mistakes letting my dog get off the leash for a moment the consequences will be instant, massive and life-ruining.
The happy ending instead sends a much more hopeful, optimistic message. Bad things happen. VERY bad things happen. But good things happen as well! I lost my dog, which was a tragedy, but then I got him back ten hours later, which is a goddam miracle.
Maybe we should re-name Champion Miracle. Nah, he’s perfect just the way he is, and he’s home for good, thank the lord.
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