THE LONG WAY HOME

A tale of true devotion and relentless determination

I don't think it would have been any harder to leave one of the kids behind when we moved away than to leave our dog. I know that parting with Zach was one of the most agonizing decisions I have ever had to make.

This is his story. We forsook him out of practical necessity. He found us out of canine determination, unwavering love and by means of forces and reckoning we will never understand.

I finally learned to NOT take my gloves off for any reason. Once Zach got them, just keep your frozen hands in your pocket!

Ann and the children and I moved from our rural home in Virginia in 1987 so that I could retrain for a new career in physical therapy. It meant leaving behind our best friend, Zachary, a six year old Black Lab.

This was for his good; he would be miserable penned up in a Birmingham back yard while we were away from home every day for school or work. We all agreed that he should remain free to roam and explore the countryside.

We found friends of friends, far across the county, over a mountain, beyond the interstate. They would be glad to give him a new home. He trembled beside me as I drove him there. Somehow I think he knew.

I left him tearfully, watching him wag his tail on his new front porch, disappearing in the distance in the rear view mirror as I drove away. I tried feebly to convince myself that old Zach did not really care who cared for him. He would be fine and we would soon outgrow our mutual loss.

A year later, in our new home in a Birmingham suburb, we got a call from the people who bought our farmhouse back near Wytheville. Ann took the phone; the color drained from her face as the kids and I watched the conversation unfold.

Our caller told Ann "There's a strange dog showed up here a couple days ago. He's a big black dog, and he stays under the porch here. He's right thin and his paws don't look so good. He just seems sort of lost and confused. The neighbors down the road say they think he's your old dog." We made more calls and confirmed the truth of this otherworldly resurrection.

"It's Zachary and he found his way home. He's looking for us and Fred, you have to go get him" Ann said through tears of joy and remorse. I knew she was right. We had to go.

But bringing Zachary there to Birmingham made no more sense than it would have a year earlier. Even so, the next day, though it meant I would miss the first day of class, driven by forces beyond reason, my daughter Holli and I drove ten hours to our old farmhouse.

He appeared cautiously as we turned into the driveway of our old farmhouse. It was Zach for sure, though less of him than we had left, and he was confused when he first saw us.

There was some white hair among the black now; he had become prematurely old at seven doggy years. But as he recognized us, he responded to all of the commands he once obeyed, as if we had never been apart.

How often we have wished that this was a world where dogs could talk. He could tell us how he made it twenty miles across a mountain range, a very busy interstate, and down a dozen country roads through unfamiliar territory, to home.

And then, when he finally arrived back at the farm, we weren't there. What he must have thought and felt!

It was obvious that his travels had taken him some months. And yet he had persisted, driven by the need to find his pack, his neck-huggers and stick-throwers and playmates; his family.

It was not enough to get these things from the substitute family of strangers who treated him well enough, but were not his.

To find his true home must have been a driving need in his mind from that first week with his counterfeit family. He waited and he waited, finally knowing one day that I was not coming back for him. And he realized that he would have to make the trip back to us on his own.

Zach stayed with us through two more moves—to Sylva and Morganton, North Carolina; but he never made it back to Virginia. At age 12, elderly in dog years, he had become decrepit, uncomfortable and incontinent.

Each day was a misery for him. We made the decision to send him out of this world painlessly. Of course, it was a terribly hard thing to do.

But looking back, I see that putting him down at last was an easier decision than the one we made to leave our good friend with strangers, thinking he would never see us again, and then knowing he would never rest until he found us.

Zachary. Outstanding in his field.