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Guess I'll add a pet story here. I grew up on a farm and we had a lot of different dogs through the years. They would come and go. Some made it for years and some didn't. I had several get run over chasing our truck to the pasture for the afternoon feedings of the cows and horses and some just got on the trail of a deer or something and never came back. I pretty much became immuned to feeling anything for these animals. A few years ago my wife and I bought our first ever house. It wasn't new but it was new to us. Shortly after my two boys, ages 8 and 3 at the time, wanted a puppy. Well the house had new carpet and with us now living in Southaven, it would have to be a mostly inside dog. The answer was no. A couple of years went by and the new wore off of the house and my boys asked again about a dog. This time I gave in. I had always kinda liked a Boxer and they wanted a puppy so we got a boxer puppy. Now, I did my homework on this breed before we purchased and knew it was going to be a challenge. In case you didn't know, Boxers have a ton of energy and love to run and they have little tolerence for the outside elements. They do very well as indoor dogs. Well after several months she kinda got to be like one of the family as far as my wife and boys were concerned. To me she was just a dog. One day my wife and I had discussed that Dixie needed a playmate to help eliminate some of her energy. A few days later at the college where I work, there was a posting on the bulletin board about a free boxer. Seems that this little guy had wandered to this students house during a bad thunderstorm. She tried for 2 months to find his owner with no luck. She couldn't keep him and was forced to give him away. I went and looked at him and there was no question that he had been somebody's pet. Told my wife about him and she said to bring him home. He was a few months older than ours but that didn't matter. I kid you not, when the two of them laid eyes on each other for the first time, it was love at first sight. They became inseparable. One would drink water while the other would lick the runoff off of the other one's chin. It became almost sickening to watch these two together. They were both still just DOGS to me. Then, one Thursday night we let them out to go potty and off they went. They headed straight for the hole in the back fence like a streak of lightening. It was a full moon that night and I guess they were feeling a little frisky. I didn't worry at first cause they usually came back a soon as I hollared at them. Not this time. This was about 7 o'clock on a summer night and not quite dark yet. About 50 yards behind the house through the woods was a railroad line. So we got a few neighbors together and started walking the tracks and calling them. This went on till well into the night with no luck. When we got back to the house we were sitting in the back yard calling them and listening for any little sound that may be them. This is when it all changed for me. My youngest son, who was now 5 at this time, got up and walked to the edge of the yard and in the most sincere and most pitiful voice you could ever imagine, started calling them. It absolutely destroyed me. He was crying like crazy saying "Please God, let Dixie and Max come home! We love them soooo much! Please come home Dixie! Please come home Max! We love you!!" He did this over and over for 10 minutes or so. I couldn't handle it any longer and grabbed my flashlight and back to the woods my wife and I went. We searched and called for several more hours. By the time we had returned, the neighbors, who were watching the boys, said they had cried themselves to sleep. This was almost 1 in the morning and my wife and I decided to call it a night and vowed to pick up the search again first thing in the morning. I tried to sleep and since I couldn't, I decided to go sit out on the back porch and see if I could listen for a bark or a noise or something. At about 2:30 am a train came through and it blowed its whistle right behind the house. Now this is something that it never had done before. I got this sick feeling in my stomach and couldn't help but think that the reason it blowed was because something was on the tracks. After it went through, I couldn't bring myself to go down there and look. I waited till it got light around 6:00 am and took off down there. Well, my fear was correct. About 30 yards down the tracks I found Max. He had been hit by the train. It was awful. He was still alive but barely. I ran back and got my wife and neighbor and we hauled him up the hill and into the truck. We called the vet on the way and they were waiting for us when we got there. We were told that there was nothing they could do to save him and we needed to have him put to sleep. We agreed so he could stop hurting. When he took his last breath he was trying to wag his little bob tail and licking our hands. I don't know if I have ever hurt so bad in my life and what were we going to tell the kids. When we got home we immediately resumed our search. I couldn't help but think that Dixie had gotten hit too and maybe she was dragged by the train and it dumped her off farther down the tracks. After walking for miles and miles in both directions and looking very closely at every little thing, we came to the conclusion that she had escaped being hit. There was only one area of the tracks that had any hair or blood any where around it. She may have seen what happened and took off and did not look back. Well we continued to search and call for several weeks. We posted signs and made phone calls to shelters and vets all over the area. We still had not told the boys anything about Max and was wondering what was the best thing to do or say. We didn't want to tell them anything but we also didn't want them to look in that yard everyday and keep hoping to see them come running up the hill through the woods. Well, one Monday afternoon almost 4 weeks later, we got a phone call from our vet saying that "DIXIE HAD BEEN FOUND!!" She gave us directions to where she was at and we went to pick her up. A thunderstorm had come up and these kind folks were just sitting in their living room with the front door open to let in a little breeze. In came Dixie and plopped right down on their couch like she owned the place. They looked at her tags and called the number on them and they called us. When we arrived and they brought her out of the house, my wife and I went crazy. Dixie jumped and licked and jumped and licked and we jumped and screamed and cried tears of joy. The people that found her were crying right along with us. We hugged them and thanked them over and over for calling in. Dixie is a beautifully marked Boxer and they could have very well kept her or just ran her off from their house. But instead they did the right thing and called. By the way, these folks lived about 8 miles from us so Dixie had done a little traveling. We loaded her up in the back of our SUV and headed to pick up the boys from daycare. When we pulled up we told Dixie to lay down and like she always did she listened. The boys got in the back seat and we headed for home. Well they were talking and telling us about their day when Dixie leaned up from the third row seat and stuck her head right in between the two boys. Well here we go again with the jumping and screaming and crying and laughing and kissing and more crying.(mostly by me watching our two boys welcome Dixie home). It was awesome to watch them. Well, Dixie's been back home for 6 months now and she has not wanted for anything since. We got her another playmate. A Yorkie named Sadie and the two of them have a blast together. When she first came home she pined for Max for a few weeks and we could tell she was hurting but she seems to be perfectly ok now. We ended up telling the boys that Max had died but not how he died. I didn't want them to try and visualize in their little heads how it must have looked. It was very traumatic for me and I'm an adult. We told my little one that Max was such a good dog that God needed him in heaven to be his watch dog. He seemed to like the thought of his dog being there with God. We still miss Max and probably always will. I know that this was a very long story to read, but I wanted to share with you how a couple of four legged animals and two boys can soften the hardest of hearts.
,Thank each of you again.Ya'll are the best.MARK,,,,,,
