I watched my puppy run at the speed of light

My life with my dogs has not been easy, dogs are a lot of work, but despite all the work I have loved every second of life with them, except 5 minutes that felt like hours on Wednesday night. We were just leaving our building to take the dogs for a walk, when I heard my mom scream “Where is she going? Catch her!” As I turned around I saw Indy zoom past me. What the …?

She had cut loose from her harness and was running up and down the sidewalk, the street and the front of the building. I was frozen in place grabbing Sandy by the leach and not knowing what to do. It wasn’t until she ran past me and Sandy, trying to tease Sandy into joining her in her game and running after her, that I came to my senses. My first thought was run after her but Jose told me to stay there, if we ran after her she would think it was a game and keep running, so all we could do was stay there quiet.

Jose was kneeling on the sidewalk, my mom went up to the front steps to stand near the building and away from the street. I sat near her with Sandy, watching my puppy running at the speed of light on the sidewalk, then going into the street as cars came. Cars stopped just in time to not hit her as she ran wild, others she was able to avoid just by less than a second.

I kept trying to grab her every time she came back to taunt Sandy but I was either too slow or she was too fast. This went on and on, as all three of us tried to grab her when she came near, but always too slow for her. People who were eating near by thought the puppy running was so cute, while our hearts were about to explode and the man who was just walking his dog just stood there frozen with his dog, waiting until we got her.

I was finally able to grab her collar when she came back to bother Sandy and couldn’t run away fast enough. When I grabbed her I hugged her tight as I tried to calm down, gave her a speech about running away.

During those 5 minutes or hours I thought we were going to lose her, either she would run away and never come back or she would get hit by a car and I really couldn’t imagine life without her, without either one of them. Now I’m scared to take them on walks, was terrified when Jose took them out tonight. If she does that again I might have another trauma.