I had checked out several places before entrusting my little dog to what I thought was the safest situation, and let me just say how grateful I am that I ruled out the place in the country. And how next time, if there is a next time, I'm picking the place closest to home.

He got away. Slipped out, under, over a narrow gap in the gate. The husband was reading the newspaper on the patio when he realized Reggie was gone.

Panic ensued. They lived a block from the main drag in one direction, miles of desert in the other. The wife, the one who had mocked me gently when I gave her a sheet of paper listing the vet and all of my contact information ("you're going to be gone how long?") was in a class. The husband contacted the community patrol, which was receiving phone calls about a small black dog on the loose, so they began tracking Reggie and trying to figure out where we lived.

There's a hazy part in the middle here. A spotting in a parking lot where the patrol and the husband called to Reggie but he refused to go to them because, hey, they weren't me.

One of my neighbors became aware of a small dog running back and forth in the street. She wasn't sure it was Reggie ("his coat was grayer than I remembered"), but at his insistence they let him into our yard so at least he wasn't out in the street. Eventually the patrol and the dogsitting couple arrived and were subjected to a verbal lashing from one of the neighbors for taking so long to track down the missing dog (two hours).

I felt badly for everyone involved, no one needs that kind of stress, but mainly I was concerned about the well-being of my dear little companion, who seemed to come through it all unscathed, if a little more anxious than usual.