Where is Lauki ?

The other day, I took Lauki out for his early morning walk which, these days, means a walk in pitch winter darkness. Along the way, we came across a large dog, a neighborhood friend of Lauki's. Together, the two of them ran off into the woods. Usually, this means some kind of circular run, Lauki taking a wide loop around me, returning a few minutes later. This time, however, the other dog's owner and I waited for 15 minutes, but the dogs did not return. Lauki has gone on extended rumspringas before so, I went home, told Ash, and we waited, together, for him to return. He didn't. 

We walked, searched, whistled, called his name. Nothing.

About 4 hours later, I found a Facebook Group called 'SOS Jurmala' and posted a missing dog post to it. As I posted, I noticed another post pop up, coincidentally. Written in Russian, "Lost dog. Wet, cold, and scared. Looking for his owner." Photos attached showed Lauki, hunching miserably, fear in his eyes, in a shop doorway on the main pedestrian street in Jurmala. Ko and I jumped into the car and made it to that spot on Jomas iela in less than 5 minutes. We were in front of the convenience store in front of which Lauki had been photographed but, no Lauki. We talked to some people who had seen him there moments before. We walked the street, calling his name for a long time.  

Hours later, we were still driving around Jurmala, looking for our poor doggy.  Our final outing was at 10:00 in the evening, now 15 hours after Lauki first ran away. We were tired, emotionally drained.  We fell asleep by 10:30, only to be woken up by banging on our windows at 11:30. Linda was outside with Lauki. She had received a call from someone not too far away who had spotted Lauki by their building. Racing over, Linda found little Lauki drooping by a fence. When he heard his name, he was more happy than she had ever seen him. Back at our place, when we opened the door, Lauki rushed in and gave us a full half hour of love and appreciation. He was overjoyed, as were we. 

Those photos of lost, scared, and cold Lauki on the SOS Jurmala page will sit in in my mind forever. We are so grateful for the community of people to so quickly and strategically came together to keep eyes out for our precious Lauki and got him back home much quicker than we expected. He didn't have to spend even one night out in the cold. We are so fortunate and so grateful!