Duffy...the Miracle Dog

For those of you that don't know a whole lot about my dog Duffy, let me introduce him to you. :) My parents got him for my 18th birthday, after dreaming for years about having a little inside dog of my own. So of course he quickly became very special to me, he sleeps with me every night in my bed, follows me around everywhere, and whenever I sit down anywhere whether at the computer or in a chair he's sure to be in my lap. :) And even recently he's started sitting with me AT the table...which Mom doesn't appreciate too much... :D So he's pretty much just TOTALLY like my child, we even have jokes that he's going to be the ring bearer in my wedding whenever I get married. :P


So on Saturday morning on the way to the Duggar's home we dropped him off at our neighbors house so they could watch him for the weekend. I'd never actually left him anywhere without me, but I thought he would be fine. Well, about 1 1/2 hours later we got a call that he had slipped out of his collar and escaped into the woods. I was shocked hearing that, but really thought they would probably find him pretty quick. We arrived at the Duggar's at about 10:30, and Duffy was still not found. I was pretty worried at this point and decided to go ahead and drive back to search for him, two of the Duggar girls Jana and Jessa, graciously drove back with me, we actually ended up talking the whole way here, it was a lot of fun and kept my mind off things. It was about 2:30 when we arrived at the house and we started searching right away...but to no avail. So after about an hour we headed back, I drove all the way back and actually made it in about 2 hours and 50 minutes instead of the 3 and a half hours that it took us going. :)


All of us girls stayed up pretty late Saturday night talking and playing some games...so much fun!!


Sunday after church we headed home and arrived just a little before dark and we went on another search until it got dark but still couldn't find him. Needless to say I was totally devastated that evening...it was so hard doing all the normal things with out my little guy following close at my heels. Mercy just couldn't understand that Duffy was gone, and kept asking to go "see" him. :( Probably the hardest though, was going to bed without Duffy, the first time I've slept in my bed without him in a LONG time. Took me hours to finally go to sleep and I ended up sleeping until 11:00 Monday morning. Anna, Micah, Andrew, and Joshua and already been out looking before I got up. And then Mom and I went to town to get stuff to make more signs. We got home at around 3:00 in the afternoon after getting them all put up, and decided to just try to walk kind of through the square mile in the woods instead of staying on the roads. So off we went, through fences, woods, and past "No Trespassing" signs. :) We did try to stay away from the houses because I didn't want to have to explain to anybody why we were walking through their property. :) It took us close to an hour to walk all the way across, because it was so hard to get through, there were lots of thorns and underbrush. After making it across, I decided we would go back up a bit and then make another strip the opposite direction. So we did, and were probably about halfway back and still no signs of Duffy. I had been praying all along that we would find him, but at that point I really just started asking the Lord to direct our steps and lead us right to Duffy. Well just about 10 minutes later after tons of zig zagging and trying to avoid houses I looked off to the left and there under a cedar tree all hunkered down was DUFFY!!! There was a barb wire fence in between but I was over that in an instant and had him in my arms, crying like a baby. :) It was just amazing!! We started back as fast as we could, but it took us at least 30 minutes to get back to where we had parked the van.

Soon as we came in the house and Duffy saw everybody he started barking, and of course all the little ones were SO excited that he was home. :) He has some pretty bad cuts on both his front legs, so Elijah and I ran him by the vet to get them looked at. We got some antibiotics as he was running a bit of a fever, and he's just been taking it easy. :) He's laying in my lap right now as I'm typing this, if he was spoiled before, he's going to be doubly spoiled now getting carried everywhere, as he is supposed to stay off his feet until he gets healed up. :) I'm SO incredibly thankful to the Lord for leading us right to Duffy!!