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We returned from our trip to Oregon in the wee hours last night/this morning. I was planning to post the first installment of my sabbatical report, but there is an unexpected and unwelcome subject which has suddenly overshadowed everything today and tonight. As I said, we got in at a very late hour. We slept for a minute, then got up for early church meetings. We received bad news there about our dog, who was in the care of loved ones—several hours before we arrived home, he disappeared. No trace, no trail. I am sick about it. We left church right after the sacrament and spent a good part of the day making and hanging signs high and low, knocking on doors, praying and crying. In the morning I will call the animal shelter and hopefully he will be there, waiting.

He is the smartest, funniest, tenderest, sweetest, if sometimes the most mischievous, little dog on the planet. I've had him in my home for over a quarter of my life. The whole week and a half I was so dawg-sick during the worst of this last miscarriage, I was curled up on the couch, useless, and he stayed right beside me, quietly guarding me and keeping me company. Back in April, when The Ancestor was dying, he stayed in her bed with her most of each day for the last few days. This is a dog who cannot normally sit still, a total busybody, a perpetual motion machine. But he's got a great big heart, even bigger than his will, perhaps. I'm not one of those people who think of their dogs as their babies, but Izzy is family. My heart hurts.

He is so cute and friendly that I can easily imagine someone taking him home.

He has such wanderlust that I can easily imagine he's in Mexico by now. Or some tempting dumpster.

I'm beginning to get reports that he "started acting funny," and haven't yet been able to pin down what exactly that means, as the caretaking duties were shared by a friend and family, and the friend is out of town now.

It feels like someone punched me, hard, in the stomach and the throat. Please, dear friends, since you've all proven to be so good already at caring and praying, will you pray with us that we will find our little dog soon?

This is the flyer my husband made that is now all over part of our city. Of course that's not my real phone number, but if you happen to miraculously spot him, you know where to find me.