Sweet Zoey Lost Options

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Last Saturday, 12/1, my husband and I were at Mark Twain Lake where we have some property. Two of our dogs Ollie and Zoey went out that morning with my husband to relieve themselves. I came out about five minutes later to feed them. We have an electric fence, but we had not yet put on their collars. We were shocked that they had already wondered into the woods before I even feed them (this is why we put in an electric fence last year). I admit we have been lax about the collars as they hate having them on and I knew they loved the woods and stupidly never thought this could happen. We just always "knew" they would return. My husband said he had a bad feeling when several hours later they still had not returned. Four hours later Ollie came back but was without Zoey. We started searching at that point. This is an RV subdivision however this time of year not many weekenders like us come up. The area is sparse with full-time residents, lots of woods and farm property.

I walked back to one house that is not too far thru the woods from our place and strangely enough one of their 7 dogs never came home Friday night. I left my phone with several people but we had to leave Sunday late afternoon to come home. I took off work Tuesday and went back up with one of my other dogs Bodie and we searched the woods and creek bottom for hours to no avail. I called all the nearby shelters, although there are none in the immediate area. She is chipped. I'm driving up tomorrow morning (Sat) with dozens of signs I made that I am going to post everywhere within 50 mile radius as she could be anywhere at this point.

We are just sick. Feel a tremendous amount of guilt - we let her down. And all the what if's...what if we had just put her shock collar on, what if we had her regular collar on, what if we had called for the dogs as soon as they went missing as they couldn't have been far because my husband had just seen them going potty near the woods five minutes before. We have been so depressed.

Zoey is a sweet sweet girl. She was brought to work at 6 weeks old by a friend of mine who found her sitting on the curb of a busy street in several inches of snow and the cold in East St. Louis. She was lethargic but healthy and I took her home with me. Everyone absolutely loves Zoey. She is a gentle loving dog who loves people. She is extremely laid back, in fact, we joke a lot about how lazy she is - she is a lounger for sure. We miss her and this has been gut wrenching - especially the not knowing part. Where is she? What happened to her that she didn't/couldn't come back? Is she hurt? Did she get shot by a farmer? Is she cold? Is she hungry? We are so depressed.

I can't think of anything else to do after posting signs tomorrow. We are so very sad. It will be a week tomorrow. Where is our sweet baby girl? We want her back so badly.

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I am at my lowest of lows today. At work, and have had to leave my desk frequently as I can't seem to stop the crying. I feel almost as depressed as when I lost my brother unexpectedly five years ago January.

I called that hotel yesterday and the daughter was pretty stand-offish with me, although she did say she posted Zoe’s picture and my phone on her facebook page because she knows so many people in the area. My husband thought these people were a bit full of it from the start, but I’m a little more trusting and naïve. But today I thought I’m going to see if I can find her fb page, it’s probably not even private. I found it almost instantly - and not one word or picture, not one, about Zoey! I burst into tears. If she lied about that, no doubt most of the rest was lies too. It starts to make sense - the reason Zoey didn’t return to them at the hotel is because they didn’t have any compassion on her - no one was feeding her, bathing her, etc. I don’t believe it. It was so much of a coincidence anyway - telling us they had her the entire week, in and out of their house, kept food outside for her and the day we got there, she mysteriously disappeared the entire day before. In fact, they even told me they picked up the food because they figured she wasn’t coming back - after telling me she would roam off for hours and come back every day for four days, and on the fifth day you just pick up the food? Nope - there never was any food. There never was any compassion. I don’t doubt they saw her - or even that her little kids played with her because the little guy, maybe 5, was talking about that “brown dog.” But I doubt it was more than a day and then she probably moved on to look for someone to help her or they shooed her away.

I have lost faith in people and God, period. Our poor Zoey. The area is so sparse with people this time of year as the majority of population is weekenders, but not in December. Absolutely no telling where she is now, almost two weeks later. We let her down. People let her down. God let her down. We've lost hope

Kim