After the Christmas Eve service at church, my husband, Micah, dropped me at the house to start preparing Christmas breakfast while he ran a few last minute errands. I went through the normal motions of returning, which include letting our Akita, Inu, out on the lead. When Micah returned home, he asked where Inu was. I found it odd, then realized she had pulled out of her collar and had been gallivanting the neighborhood for at least 10 minutes. We weren't too worried-she isn't very fast-but Micah took the car and went out looking for her.

He returned empty handed. I mourned while finishing the preparations, but we decided to go out again. Two hours later we realized that we couldn't do anymore and decided to sleep on the couches in the living room in the case that she came back in the middle of the night. We were hoping our other dog would be on watch and let us know if she came onto the porch. (Around 3 AM we found Elmer curled on our bed while we slept on the couch.)

We had resolved that this would just be a Christmas without Inu when we received a call around 10:45 Christmas morning. It was HomeAgain letting us know that someone had spotted her! They transferred us to a very kind yet out of breath woman who let us know that her husband was trying to get her into their truck!

We got to their truck with tears in our eyes and our girl charged towards us and hopped into the car. After many profuse “thank you’s” later and a hug from her husband, we were bringing Inu home!

We are so thankful we got her microchipped in November and even more grateful to HomeAgain for working tirelessly on Christmas and the kind people who followed her into an abandoned parking lot just to make our Christmas a little brighter. Inu's return is truly the best Christmas present ever! And to make it even more special, it is Micah's birthday and our first holiday together as a married couple!

Posted By: Carter, Indianapolis, IN - 12/25/2008
Pet Name: Inu  Species: Dog  Breed: Akita  Sex: Female