Pluto

On the morning of October 17th, Sammy slept peacefully in her bed. Suddenly she heard a loud scream coming from what she assumed to be her mom but she ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. She realized that her bed seemed a little bit empty, usually she has her dog Pluto next to her but she didn’t. “Where’s Pluto? Did someone come into my room? Is that why my mom screamed?”. 

Suddenly Sammy’s mom came into the room, “Oh good, you’re awake, where’s Pluto?”. “ I don't know where he is, mom, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

 Sammy replied. “Well we have to find him!”. 

   We left my room and checked upstairs first, we checked all the rooms, the bathroom, the bedrooms and nothing. Once we made it downstairs we checked the living room, every crevice in the couches, under the table, behind the TV, and nothing. I started to panic a little bit but I was trying to stay calm because knowing myself I would not be able to function correctly and we would never find him. Once we finished looking in the library then we checked the kitchen, “maybe he’s just eating, right?”. 

My heart dropped when I saw that his food bowl was still full, usually that's the first thing he does whenever he wakes up but today his bowl was still full. 

I thought to myself, “what if he escaped ?, no that's crazy he wouldn’t do that, he's a good boy, but what if he did leave?”, but we still had 2 places to check, the basement and the garage. 

     I went straight to the basement because it was the closest and maybe he would just be in the basement. 

“It’s pretty cramped down here.” I said to myself. I checked the laundry room, behind the washing machine and the dryer, nothing. I checked behind the shelf where we keep the laundry detergent, nothing. I was getting hopeless, scared that I actually lost Pluto. I was getting a little stressed but I didn’t give up. “

I didn’t check the garage yet, maybe he’s in there,”. I ran up the stairs towards the garage door, I opened it.                        

     Inside the garage were a bunch of boxes, I moved them to see if maybe he could be behind the boxes but nothing. 

I thought to myself, “I didn't check the backyard yet.” So I left the garage and went outside to the backyard. I checked on the patio thinking that he would be there but no. I went down the steps and onto the freshly cut grass and I looked towards my left and I saw an opening underneath the patio and me being desperate I was just trying to see if maybe he was underneath it, maybe he was trying to chase something and he went underneath the patio to get it. 

     So I checked inside and I heard rattling. At first I was happy because maybe it was Pluto and so I went in deeper. I was devastated when I saw that the noise that I was hearing was a family of bunnies. I was stressed out, I thought that I was never going to find him. Just as I was about to give up, I saw the gate, it was open, but I didn’t leave it open. 

     Maybe someone left it open by accident, but I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about Pluto, 

“what if he got hurt, what if he’s lost, he’s probably scared.” I was going to run and see where it led me but I decided to run back into the house and told my parents that the gate was open. 

“But we didn’t leave the gate open.” my mom said. 

“You didn’t?” I responded. “No we didn’t.” responded my parents. 

“Did someone steal him, did they break in, Did he run away?”. 

So many emotions were going through my body and I was just trying to keep myself calm because I knew that we would find him soon, maybe he would just come home and everything would be great but for some reason I just couldn’t believe it. He’s never run away from home before, I’m always very cautious when it comes to Pluto because you would never want your dog to get hurt in any way and especially you wouldn’t want them to run away. So I went back to the backyard and went through the open gate.

     I walked and decided to check in areas that would be near our house that he would’ve gone to. I checked near the neighbors house to see if maybe he would’ve ran just too hide but I didn’t see anything, not one trace of him, no footprints in the dirt, no holes that he wouldn’t dig up, nothing. I wanted to stay calm but I was freaking out, 

“What if he doesn’t come home.”. As I was checking to see if there was any trace of Pluto I thought to myself, “maybe I could ask the neighbors if they’ve seen Pluto.”. So I started to knock on doors.

     The first house I went to was really nice. It had a bunch of beautiful assortments of flowers. I walked up to the door and I rang the doorbell. The person who answered the door was a woman around her late 50’s it seemed, curly light gray hair, beautiful baby blue eyes and fair skin. “Hi, sorry to bother you but have you seen a golden retriever wandering around here? It seems that he has run away and me and my family are trying to find him.”. 

The lady looked at me with a sadden look on her face, “I’m sorry that you’ve lost your dog but I haven’t seen any golden retriever wandering around her except for my own.”. As soon as she said that both of her golden retrievers came walking behind her as if they were trying to protect her. 

“Oh okay, Thank you for your help.” I said with a smile on my face. 

“Of course, good luck with trying to find your dog, hopefully he shows up soon.”. I smiled back at her and went on my way to the next house.

     It was the same thing, each neighbor I went too, they hadn't seen Pluto. I was trying to take the woman's advice that maybe he will show up soon but I was still trying to find him just in case that I would find him on my way. On my journey trying to find him I walked past a park,

”Maybe he went here.” As I walked to the entrance, I saw a dog. It kind of looked similar to Pluto so I walked up to the dog, but it wasn’t him. I was getting frustrated, like if I couldn’t focus, I felt helpless, like maybe I wouldn’t be able to find him. I kept wandering on the sidewalks and checking the alley ways to make sure that he wasn’t just hanging around there with someone that could possibly hurt him or myself in that matter. Just as I was on my way back home I saw that there was a dog park by , 

“Maybe he just wanted a new friend.”. I hoped that i could find him there so I walked into the park and wandered around but not trying to make it seem too creepy like if I was trying to steal somebody’s dog. All of a sudden I was approached by a lady in her late 30’s.

     “Where is your dog?Is he the one in the corner over there?”. 

“Well I lost my dog and I’m trying to see if he’s here.” I responded. 

“Oh well I hope you find him, he probably misses you.” The women responded. 

“I miss him the most.” I responded. I continued to look around the park and I didn’t see anything. It was like the universe was working against me, not with me. I felt like I was a failure. As I was walking home, I kept thinking to myself, 

“Hopefully he finds his way back to me.” I prayed to God that he would come home safely and most importantly, come back healthy and not hurt. I walked all the way home without looking up, I felt sad, disappointed in myself that I let him leave and I wasn’t watching him, “but I was asleep, how would I have known?” I thought to myself.

     All of the sudden I heard a noise, as if someone was running up to me, the noise of what I figured out was a collar. 

“It couldn’t be, could it?” As I looked up I heard,

“ Sammy, look who came home!” My mom said. I was relieved when I saw that it was Pluto. His furry golden face with his tongue sticking out like If he had just gone on a walk, His big brown eyes looking at me.

”Hi Pluto !!, where did he come from?” I asked my parents. 

“He just showed up on our doorstep, he was scratching the door and he looked like he wanted to come home.” My mom said. I was just glad that he was home, I felt the stress leave my body and I could finally be calm.

     We brought Pluto inside the house and he ran to his food bowl, 

“who’s a hungry little boy?” I said to Pluto. He looked up at me with a big smile on his face and he jumped on me. I fell to the ground and gave him hugs and kisses. “I’m so glad you’re home Pluto, you made me so worried.” He didn’t really understand me so he was just listening to what seemed to him to be complete nonsense. Once he was done with his food, I couldn’t bear to give him a treat, after all he did come back. It took a lot out of me to find him but why would I just ignore him and not appreciate him. So I have him a bone, It was a little tough for him but he finally got to the end of it and he wanted another one but I told him no. He looked kind of sad but I didn’t want to see him sad, 

“Okay one more wouldn’t hurt but don’t tell mom.” He just stared at me but honestly It didn’t bother me too much, he did end up ‘telling’ mom and I got in trouble but I couldn’t be mad at him. Once he was done with his treat, we went back to my room. I layed down on my bed and Pluto joined me, we fell asleep and went on to the next day.