A Really Bad Day

Friday morning we woke up to our alarms to get ready for work. First thing Adam said was "where is Tyson?". I thought about it and had no idea, but figured he was probably sleeping on the couch. Tyson has a doggie door and we sleep with the door open so he can get up and go outside whenever he wants (this is also because we are SUPER lazy) and sometimes he will come back in and just sleep the rest of the night on the couch.

We get up, call his name. He doesn't come running.... so I start to get worried and of course have some terrible thoughts run through my head (like is he dead some where in our house). Adam looks everywhere with no luck. The last place to look is our backyard. Adam goes outside and immediately starts running to our front gate. I see him put his hands over his face and I know this can't be good. Adam and his friends had been out for a few drinks the night before and had come back in through that gate (which we NEVER use). Someone didn't latch the door and therefore, it was open and Tyson was gone.

At this point and I am not freaking out because Tyson always comes back. He has never been a dog that runs far from home. But we jump in the car to start strolling the streets. We purposely left the gates to the fence open, so by chance he came back while we were out, he could get back in. First loop around the neighborhood was unsuccessful so we split up. I took the car, Adam was on foot. I went to the local vets and started calling around, while Adam's focus was walking the neighborhood again. By 8am or so, I was feeling less hopeful.

At this point in the game, we had been looking for him for close to 2 hours. I was past the freaking out moment and Adam was barely holding it together. Adam went to Kinkos to make some "missing dog" signs and I tried to get creative. I placed "missing dog" ads on Craigslist, filed a lost dog report with the City of Denver and started searching through our files looking for his microchip information. The catch to this whole situation is Tyson was not wearing his collar. When we figured this out, we were devastated. He ALWAYS has a collar on and this was a one-off chance where he wasn't wearing it. This means that he could be anywhere and no one would know where he lived or who he was. Which is why I started searching endlessly on the internet to figure out how to update his microchip. I knew it had some of our information on it, but I couldn't remember what number was on it or what address it had. In the midst of this, I ended up registering him on PetLink.com. If the microchip didn't have our correct info, then at the very least I could register our current info with PetLink so if someone did a search on the microchip, maybe it would link back to us?!?

Its about 10-10:30am at this point. Adam is back home and we were brain storming of any other search options we hadn't already exhausted. Finally, Adam's phone rings and it is the City of Denver. All they say is "we think we have your dog- he was hit by a car and is at the vet right now." They couldn't tell us if he was dead or alive or what vet he was at. They said we had to go to the City of Denver's Animal Shelter first to pay some fines blah blah blah because he wasn't wearing a collar and Animal Control had picked him up. We jump in the car and were on the way to the Animal Shelter (20 mins away) when the phone rings again. It was the City again and this time they say that the report did say he was hit from behind and was at the vet on East Alameda St. This was semi-relieving because this gave us some hope (hit from behind is better than getting hit in the front-right?!). I found the vet's number (thank God for smart phones) and was put on hold for about 5 mins then FINALLY was put through to the Doctor.

First thing I asked before she started talking was is he dead or alive? Dr. Long let us know he was alive and stable (good news!!!!!!! The BEST news!!!!!) The bad news is he was hit by a car and his back-right femur was broken in half and would need surgery. The two options for surgery were to 1) place a rod and screws in his leg or 2) amputate it. Of course we were going to go with option 1, considering she thought he would make a full recovery with the rod.

We got done with the City of Denver Animal Shelter, we headed to the vet to hopefully talk to the Dr. and pay the deposit for surgery. Once we got to the vet, there was no holding it together (emotionally) poor poor Tyson was there and was so pathetic/confused/injured/scared. It was so great to see him (he actually looked better than you would think), but it was SO hard to see him like that. The Dr. showed us his xrays (terrible) and let us know the plan of action. One of the hard parts for me with this story, is his surgery got bumped to Monday. Since he was at the emergency vet, the life-threatening surgeries are priority and since this happened on Friday and Ty was stable, he got bumped to Monday. This means this whole weekend he has to tough it out to get to surgery. This KILLS me.

Friday was honestly one of the worst days of my life. Tyson is like our child. He is our family. He brings us so much joy. He is our one-main responsibility and Adam and I can't help but feel responsible for the situation. Ty goes into surgery on Monday and should make a full recovery in about 8 weeks. We are so thankful he is going to be ok. He has visiting hours this weekend and although it is really hard seeing him, it has been great to be able to check in with him and make sure he is still alive and kickin.

Moral of the story?! If you ever take your collar of your dog for some reason, put it back on ASAP. Is your dog microchipped? If not, get it done. This is how Ty was matched back with us. Remember how I had registered his ID# on PetLink? Well, I am pretty sure this was the piece of the puzzle that linked him back to us. The vet had scanned him and saw he was registered to an Emily Griffin and I had registered that lost dog report with the City of Denver. Thank God he was microchipped or I am not sure if we would have found him.

Thank you for all of the calls/texts/emails. It has been a stressful few days and we are just SO thankful Tyson is alive and will be coming home this week. We still need some prayers for his surgery on Monday, as it is a pretty intense surgery. Recovery will start on Tuesday and the doctor says in about 8 weeks he should be his normal self.

We love Tyson SO much. We are just so blessed that he is going to be Ok. If we would have lost him, we don't know what we would have done.

I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend! Thanks again for every one who has checked in on him. Love you all!!