Pookie

 Miracles come in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes, they are small, furry, and can't find their way back home, So, you just use your heart and your hands, and help them along. And then, you suddenly, have a miracle in the making.

Pookie was our first miracle for the New Year.

This little Pomeranian mix showed up at our house, out in the countryside of Salem, on New Year's morning. He had a collar, but no tags, and was friendly and a bit shy. He seemed older, but was not matted, nor undernourished. And he had a little plume tail that wagged every time you said anything at all to him.

We'd had a lot of fireworks all over Salem the night before and assumed that he was one of those little animals that had gotten scared and run off in fright. But we also assumed that we just had to do our best to reunite him with his owners no matter what it took!

Well, it took us a couple of days and a couple of very interesting synchronistic happenings. But we reunited Pookie with his family just two days later.

And Pookie, this tiny little dog was far more than 5 miles away from his farm home in Brooks, Oregon to our house in Salem.  It turned out that he lived more than a mile north of Brooks and then down a long road to a peony farm where Abe and his wife had two dogs. Pookie is owned by their 20 year old daughter, who loved him more than anything in the world.

They went to friends in Keizer on New Years Eve and then home to Brooks to discover that Pookie was missing. The daughter was so distressed that she wanted to call in sick to a brand new job. Her mom told her she'd post a lost dog report on Craigs List, which she had, and then she heard that our Willamette Humane Society, here in Salem, had a place where you could also post missing dogs. So, 4 p.m. on the second day of his being missing,  she decided to check the Willamette Humane Society, just in case and leave her information about losing their little dog.

I had already made flyers, with his little photo and our phone number, and put them up and down our country road.  And I kept his family in my thoughts, and in my heart, so they'd feel that someone kind had found their little dog and was caring for him.

At 4:30 p.m., just half an hour after the owners made their phone call, we decided to call and leave a 'found' message, just in case, as well.  At first the receptionist didn't seem to connect the dots, especially since the little dog lost had no tags and they are only able to take and keep them for 3 days without tags.  But thinking upon our description, it suddenly dawned on her that this dog sounded just like the one in the phone call earlier.  So, she gave us the phone number, just in case..

For a little dog to have walked more than five miles, through the night, in the dark, whether it was along a busy New Year's Eve highway, or through dozens and dozens of back country farm fields, is a very long way.

But little Pookie, as we later discovered he was named, must have just searched and searched for someone who loved animals and knew just how to connect the dots of the impossible because he apparently came to the right house, at the right time, and everyone else just followed his lead.

By 6:30 of the second evening, Pookie was the little dog lost, now found, and on his way home with his absolutely delighted and thrilled beyond belief, family.  As his 'grandma' said to me as she grabbed my hands and held his little face up to mine, to say goodbye."This is such a blessing."

Yes, it was. A wonderful tiny, furry little blessing for a New Year.

Did you know that Pookie was the name of Garfield's teddy bear?

Such fun learning new things!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!