On Wednesday, January 26th, Katie got a frantic voicemail at work from Marisa, the manager of dogcentric, the company that walks Hershey three days out of the week. Her message went something like this: KATIE! HERSHEY GOT OUT OF HER COLLAR AND IS LOOSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD! WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE SHE IS! PLEASE CALL ME BACK!
So Katie got the message and called Marisa back and proceeded to yell profanities at this woman along with a phrase of "I will sue your company for everything you have if my dog is dead!"...or something like that. So Katie rushed out of her office...waddling all the way. Katie called Matt on the drive in a complete state of panic and disbelief. When Katie arrived at her house she saw three dog walkers with blank faces just wondering around. Katie immediately asked them everything they knew (which was nothing) and started shouting Hershey's name. Marisa said she would get in her car and drive further out to see if she could track her down. Katie went the other way. This was all very traumatic for Katie who was 29 weeks pregnant. Marisa called Katie about 15 minutes later and said that Hershey was spotted on Jones Bridge running into the Naval Base! So Katie immediately got in my car and drove BACK to work. The police officer at the main gate told Katie that Hershey is in the pavilion area beside USUHS. So she (calmly) drove her car down there where she saw about 5 police officers running after Hershey. Katie called Hershey who eventually came to her. She had bloody paws but was okay. Since Katie works at the Naval Base she knew all the police officers who called her by name and let her know that her name would be in the Security Blotter for the day. Lucky (me). Katie took Hershey home to get cleaned off and Matt came home a few minutes later. It was about 2 hours of pure torture for the family thinking that Hershey could be dead. She had to cross major roads to get there. She actually took the exact path Katie takes to work everyday. Hershey has NEVER been to the Naval Base so it was so strange to comprehend her motive and thinking around her journey. Hmmm...maybe she missed Mama.
So if that wasn't traumatic enough....later on that day a terrible snow storm visited the DC area. Luckily, thanks to the Hersh-dogger, Matt and Katie were home before the roads got bad...or should I say closed down! By 4pm the snow/sleet/rain mixture devastated this area to where major roads were shut down and commuters were forced to abandon their vehicles on the roads and walk! Some people stayed with their cars but ended up with a commute of 12+ hours!!! The power went out at the Emery's house around 6pm that night and did not come back on until Friday at 12:30am!!!! It was cold but we all bundled together to stay warm.
Our street right after the storm:
