(almost) A Hallmark Movie Moment

Ben and I joke about Hallmark movies a lot... basically if you've seen one, you've seen them all. They are all ridiculously sappy and pathetic, and Ben likes to jokingly tell me that I just need a Hallmark movie to happen to me in real life. 

Last night Ben told me that there was a gift for me from a friend in my dad's car... I grabbed my boots and ran outside. It was really dark and the lights from the house were casting creepy shadows on everything. (Now for those of you who don't know me very well, I should tell you that I have a really vivid imagination.) As my foot hit the last stair coming down from our porch I heard a noise in our yard. I looked up and all thoughts of what was in the back of my dad's car vanished as I saw the outline of a coyote. It was standing between our house and garage just 20 feet away from me. Its ears were perked and I knew it had seen me. I think my heart stopped beating for a full second. Then adrenaline kicked in and I jumped up the seven or eight stairs in one leap and slammed the door behind me... turns out, long legs are good for something!! 

As I tried to catch my breath I looked behind me and staring at me through the glass door was the coyote... wagging her tail and looking curiously inside. Obviously, after I saw the bright red collar and noticed that it was a dog not a coyote my heart began to return to a more normal pace. My mom brought her in and since news travels quickly in this house, everyone was soon crowded in the front hallway with the "coyote". We called some neighbors and no one knew whose dog it could be. After giving her some water, we let her back outside figuring she'd return home. This morning we found her curled up on our porch. We let her back in and she was super good with the little kids. As my mom called some animal shelters to ask if anyone had lost their dog, Ben jokingly said, "Maybe her owner will be an 18 year old farm boy... *wink wink* Hallmark moment!!" 

I didn't care if it was an 18 year old farm boy or not, I just asked, "If we don't find her family, can we keep her?" I've wanted a puppy for a long time... and since I didn't get one for my birthday or Christmas I thought this might be the perfect answer. The kids had already named her "coyote"... due to the heart attack she gave me last night and Samantha and Bethany had played with her outside for half an hour running through the snow and being adorable!!

Sadly the words has just left my mouth when the phone rang. Her family had just moved from a massive farm in South Dakota and "Bootsie" hadn't gotten used to the fact that she didn't have as much land as before. They came and picked her up within minutes. Seeing their pure jubilation in reuniting with their puppy made me slightly less sad in saying goodbye to my Hallmark dog. Hopefully, for them it ended up being a perfect Hallmark moment... 

...Bootsie was a cattle dog too! Maybe someday, when I live on a farm I'll get a puppy like her.