Free Dog Days by Donna Ball Page A

Of course she’d bolted.
    And I was as irresponsible as the owners who had lost her in the first place.
    I pulled on jeans, took my flashlight, and searched the perimeter of the house, the yard, the kennel area, calling for her all the while. It’s an exercise in frustration to try to find a runaway dog in the dark; believe me, I’ve tried it before. She could have been hiding in a dozen different places, or deliberately running from me, or, as every instinct in my body told me she had done, she could have taken off for the woods the minute she was free.
    Eventually I was forced to admit defeat. I returned to the house a little before dawn, where Cisco was watching for me with his paws on the window. He looked at me anxiously when I came in and I felt just awful. I sank to the floor and put an arm around him. “Oh, Cisco,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
    I don’t think he understood.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    A s soon as it was light, I put Cisco’s tracking harness on him and took him out to search. He picked up her trail immediately, as I’d known he would, and it led straight into the woods and across the mountain, as I’d known it would. Those woods eventually join up with the Nantahala National Forest, and the odds against finding a single lost dog in all that wilderness, even with the aid of Cisco’s nose, were not good.
    We searched for over an hour before I reluctantly called Cisco off. He looked uncertain and confused, because he was trained to keep searching until he lost the scent, and even training exercises ended with a mock “find” and a reward. But it was after eight and I hadn’t yet opened the kennel. We might well track miles into the woods on the trail of a dog who had too much of a head start to be found, and I simply couldn’t afford the wasted effort. There had to be a better way.
    I played a quick game of tug with Cisco and let him munch down a handful of treats before we turned back. “It’s okay, boy,” I told him, ruffling his ears. “We’re not giving up. Just falling back to regroup.”
    I had given Pepper, Mischief, and Magic their breakfasts before I left, but after last night’s incident I wasn’t comfortable about leaving them outside while I was away, either in my double-fenced kennel play yard or my fenced backyard. So, even though the kennel dogs were waiting to begin their day with breakfast and exercise time, the first thing I did was hurry to the house to release my own three charges from their crates. Then, with Cisco beside me, I trotted across the drive to Dog Daze.
    I hesitated, glancing around, when I saw the bicycle with the paw print helmet dangling from the handlebars parked outside the gate. But when I heard the barking of a couple of dogs in their outside kennel runs, I hurried up the walk. The door was unlocked and I rushed inside. “Corny?”
    He called cheerfully back, “Good morning, Miss Stockton!” He came from the kitchenette with a mug of steaming black coffee, which he presented to me. Cisco raced to greet him and sat, without being asked, at his feet, grinning up at him. Corny stroked Cisco’s ears and added, “The dogs are fed, the dishes are in the dishwasher, Chi-Chi and Dimples have had their meds, and I’ve just started opening the kennel runs. Oh, and I stopped by a farm stand on the way in for fresh blueberry muffins. I left one on your desk, warm from the micro.”
    I stared at him. He was dressed today in red plaid Bermuda shorts and an emerald green shirt with white piping around the collar, matching green Crocs, and white socks. But that was not why I stared. “How did you get in here?” I demanded.
    He straightened up from petting Cisco and looked confused. “The door?”
    “It was locked.”
    “Oh.” He waved that away. “I used the code.”
    I glared at him suspiciously. “I didn’t give you the code.”
    “Well, it was easy enough to figure out.” He looked pleased with himself. “Cisco’s birthday.”
    Now