I live in Thailand, with my son Sean, his wife Pink, and their 3 month old daughter Abigail. We live in a big, beautiful house, that sits on a river, which is really great, because we also have 2 dogs, and one of them Jake, our Golden Retriever, just loves to spend the day playing in the water. Life is fairly good.
Recently the river has dried up, and Jake started exploring further up the dry river bed, and found a place where there was a dog in heat, and he would sit on the riverbank all day looking at this house.
Apparently these neighbors gave him bones, and were friendly to him at first, which encouraged him to go back every day. Then they started complaining that he was trampling their garden.
We have tried to figure out a way to keep him away from there, considering our backyard has full access to the river it is quite difficult.
Thursday, Jake did not come home for dinner as he usually does. Friday my son went to this neighbor to ask him if he had seen him Jake, and his reply was that Jake had left there at 5:00 the previous day, which would be about right, Jake has an uncanny sense for dinner time.
Friday night, again no Jake. We have driven all around the neighborhood, looking for him, with no luck.
Today, Saturday, my son went back to the neighbors to ask again if they have seen Jake. There were other people at the house this time besides the owners, and they made a reference that we were not good dog owners, further suggesting that he may have been kidnapped, possibly to be sold or taken to the meat market. Sean did not get a good feeling from these people at all, like they knew a lot more than they were saying.
My first reaction to the situation is anger, believing that these people had seen Jake as a pest and arranged to have him removed, to either be sold (he is a purebred) or simply sent to the dog meat market.
My mind is filled with angry thoughts and bad ideas about what to do. I told my son I would go over there and start pulling out their plants one by one, demanding them to tell us what they did with our dog, and not stop until they did. A rather aggressive approach for sure.
We contacted Care for Dogs, the local dog rescue organization here in Chiang Mai, to ask for their advice of where to look if he was being sold. They were extremely helpful, and gave us directions to a market that was known to sell kidnapped dogs, and my son took off to check it out and see if he could find Jake.
Anger, and of course fear, is boiling up inside of me. And I stopped and thought about what I have been learning.
How you react to a situation defines the outcome. So I started thinking of how I could turn all this anger into something more positive.
While my son was gone, I came up with a new approach to the problem.
What I wanted was Jake back, from wherever he had disappeared to. If these people had any information, I wanted it. So I came up with the idea of printing up a flier, offering a reward for the return of Jake, and taking it to them in a friendly manner and asking for their help.
As soon as I started thinking along more positive lines, I immediately began to feel better. The anger disappeared, my headache went away, and I started feeling more optimistic.
My son returned without Jake.
Standing in the front yard discussing what to do next, we heard a familiar bark a few blocks away. My son jumped on his Motorbike to explore the source. Was it Jake?
It was! He found Jake stranded on the second floor of a house that was under construction. He had managed to climb the stairs up, but was afraid to come down! As far as we know, he had been there since Thursday night.
We are so happy to have Jake back, and I learned a powerful lesson. I have a tendency to let negative feelings control my reactions to bad situations, which is very unhealthy and unhelpful.
Luckily, we did not have to print up the posters and try my approach, but the process of recognizing my negative reaction, and taking control and changing it, was very powerful for me.
So now we are working on a way to build a barrier to keep Jake inside our yard and out of the river. When the water begins to flow again, and his private swimming hole is back, we will let him out to swim.
