I was about 7 years old when my dog Cody ran away. Before this day Cody had run away several other times, but he always came back. This day, however, he didn’t.

My brother, my mom, and I were just arriving back at the house from soccer practice. We came in and as usual Cody was there eating his food. After a short time, my mom let him outside to run around for awhile. He was outside running and having a good time, so my mom had us sit down to eat dinner. After we ate our meal, my brother realized we never let Cody back into the house. I said, “ Okay, I’ll go get him.” I got up from the table and went outside. I was looking in my backyard for him shouting, “CODY...CODY...COME HERE BOY”. Not once did I hear him bark, nor did I see him. I came back into the house and said to my family,” I couldn’t find him and I think he might have run away again”.
My mom had a worried look on her face, but she was doing her best to hide those emotions from me. We went out on our search and went to the most obvious place we could think of; our neighbors, the Patrick’s. When we got to the front door Mrs. Patrick could tell something was wrong from the expression on my face. My mom asked if they had seen Cody anywhere, ( this being his typical runaway spot). She answered “no” with a sweet voice, trying to be as helpful as she could. “No, i’m sorry, but we will keep our eyes peeled”, she said. “We will call you if we see any signs of him.” As soon as I heard this answer my stomach dropped. I was terribly scared and hoped he wasn’t hurt or in danger.

My family and I walked through the streets of our neighborhood screaming his name and hoping to hear him bark. Yet every time we stopped to listen for him, there was silence. At this point my mom and I began to get worried. We decided my dad and brother would go back to the house to get the car, and drive through our neighborhood streets to see if they could spot him. However, my mom and I decided we would go door-to-door and ask our neighbors if they had seen Cody. By the time we got to the first house, an hour had already gone by since we last saw him. We walked up to the front door, rang the doorbell, and both of us waited, hoping they could provide some information. When we asked them if they had seen him, they said they had not, but they would contact us if they did.

My mom and I went from house to house wishing that someone would say they had seen him. Yet every house we went to had the same response, and no one had seen our dog. Even more time had elapsed and we still had about 11 houses to go. My mom called my dad and asked him if he was having any luck. Walking beside my mom I could hear my dad’s voice from the other line, “ No, we checked the whole neighborhood twice and are driving through it one more time.”
My mom said, “ Please let us know if you find him. Taylor is getting very worried.” She hung up as we arrived at another one of our neighbor’s house.
Once again we walked all the way to the door and rang the doorbell. We were now experiencing less of a sense of hope. After searching many houses in the neighborhood, without any luck, my mom and I were beginning to get scared. I said to my mom, “ Are we going to find him? Is he okay?” All she could do was tell me yes, but she too was thinking those exact same thoughts. When our friends came to the door a little boy named Cooper, who was 7 years old at the time, answered the door. Cooper was a small boy with brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. Seeing him in the doorway made us both think to ourselves this was useless. How was a 7 year old suppose to know where a missing dog was? Still, my mom and I sat him down and began to explain our situation. I said, “ Cooper, our dog has been missing for such a long time now. Have you seen him anywhere?” I gave a quick glance at my mom and she put her arm around me trying to comfort me. There was a brief pause while Cooper was thinking.
Thankfully, Cooper finally said,” Actually I did see a dog.” A smile lit up on my face. He said, “He was running so fast down the street! I think that man who lives in the yellow house next to us grabbed him and took him inside. I didn’t know it was your dog or I would have told my mom about it." My mom and I told Cooper thank you so many times as he stepped back into his house and shut the door tightly behind him. With a sense of hope, we headed over to the yellow house. When we got to the house a man answered the front door and said, “ What can I help you with?”

We replied, “ Our dog ran away earlier tonight and we have been searching for him ever since. Did you happen to see him? We heard you have him with you inside.”

He replied, “Well, you heard correctly.Follow me”. We went down a long flight of stairs in the pitch dark. I was very afraid. As we walked further down the stairs, I was grasping my mom’s shirt tighter and tighter. Neither of us had any idea where we were going. All of a sudden we heard barking and my heart leaped back to life. We had found Cody! The man turned on the lights of his dusty, old, beat-up basement and there he was in a cage; shivering and scared. The cage was small and he was very crammed. After about 3 hours of non-stop searching we finally found Cody. We were so happy. Yet we felt bad for him, he was probably in that cage for awhile, scared, cold, and very confused. We brought him back to our house where my dad and brother were waiting. I showered him with hugs and kisses. I was so happy he was okay. I guess during his little adventure he became very frightened because from that day on he never ran away again.