Jennifer Plesko

Hubby and I bought our first home a few weeks before we got married. We completely remodeled it and made it our own. We loved everything about the place - the colors, the deck, the arbor, the location. It was just down the street from the Texas A&M campus, which not only made it ideal for football games, it also made it ideal to take our dogs, Scratch and Sniff, for long walks on campus.

We did this several times a week for the three years we lived there. The dogs loved running loose on the golf course at night, jumping in Rudder Fountain, running around the quad. We have a lot of good memories from those walks. So when we went back to College Station this weekend, we decided to take the dogs for a walk around campus while all of the game day hoopla was going on. Then we’d go watch the Corps March In and head home.

It started out well enough. The dogs were thrilled to go for a walk, and they were well behaved as usual. But the larger the crowds were, the more nervous Scratch was. He kept pulling his leash to one side, which was strange. We thought maybe he was thirsty, so we took the dogs to Fish Pond to let them cool off.

After they hopped in and waded around for awhile, they seemed content. So we decided to head back over to the quad for March In. By then, of course there were even more people, and Scratch was getting more skittish, so we found a spot under a tree and sat down hoping the dogs would just lay down and relax. We forgot about the cannon boom that starts the March In.

The dogs jumped about five feet into the air, tails tucked between their legs. Still, somehow we were able to calm them back down rather quickly. That is, until those first loud, brassy notes of the Aggie War Hymn started and the band stepped off right in front of them. As if on cue, both dogs pulled out of their leashes simultaneously. I quickly grabbed Sniff by the nape of the neck and managed to pin him down. But Scratch took off like a bat out of hell. Hubby took off after Scratch while I held Sniff with one hand and tried to pull his collar back over his head with the other. By the time I finally wrestled his collar back onto him, Hubby and Scratch were long gone.

Hubby initially thought that Scratch would stop once he got away from the noise and people, so he wasn’t exactly in hot pursuit. Then he passed one lady who saw him with an empty collar and leash in hand and said “He went that way, and he was booking it.” So Hubby picked up the pace to a trot. Then he passed another lady who asked if he was looking for a little shepherd dog. “Yes,” he said. “He was hauling it, and he was about to cross the street.” It was then Hubby knew where he was going, and he went into a dead sprint.

Meanwhile, Sniff and I were wandering in the other direction just in case Scratch changed routes, but he was nowhere to be found. And even though Sniff is a hound, he can’t hunt for crap, so he was no help at all. About this time, I was starting to get panicky. The thought of never seeing Scratch again was pretty upsetting to me. He’s been a sweet, cuddly part of our lives for six years. Just as I was about to cry, Hubby called. He had found Scratch. The dog had run through campus in game day traffic, crossed one of the busiest streets in town, and ran nearly a mile back to our old house - the house we moved out of in September of 2006. There he was, sitting at the front door, waiting for Hubby. That must’ve been his plan all along because, when he had been pulling on his leash, it was always to the east.

So Scratch may not be the bravest dog ever, but he is very smart. He knew where to go to be found. I wanted to be angry at him for running off (and running across George Bush Drive), but I was so glad to see him I couldn’t manage to stay mad. How can you be mad at this face?