We immediately started searching the area and did so until about 8:30pm. We had to give up cause it was so dark we couldn't see anything. The next morning, I got up and started walking the roads and yards searching for her. I took each of my dogs one at a time with me, hoping that she would smell them and come out of wherever she had gotten to. We searched all day until sundown covering every inch we could between my house and the area she was last seen which is about a 1/4 mile. We live in a very wooded area with several homes, but a lot of the homes are vacant this time of the year.

After dark we made up flyers and then posted them in every spot we could from the grocery stores to the gas stations, pet stores, local school, vet clinics ect. I called animal control, and the SPCA. We also made small flyers to put on everyones door on our road so that if they saw her they had contact info.

Friday, we searched all day again and again without any sightings at all. Sandy, Michelle's mom came out and walked all over looking into deserted sheds, barns and buildings. She also tromped thru a trail thru the woods between my house and the cranberry bog.

 On Saturday a woman that lived just a bit further down than we had been concentrating on called and said that she was sure that she had seen her in her driveway and that she ran into the woods on the other side. We were excited that someone had seen her and she did describe T'qila as looking like Charo but with more white. So we moved our concentration to this lady's driveway. She happened to live in one of the homes on the ocean side, but all the homes around her are unoccupied. Plenty of hidey holes for a small dog to get into. We put T'qilas crate down there and hoped it would attract her to that spot so we could find her.

On Sunday when we checked the food was still there. We also got a call from one of the neigbors around 9:30 pm saying that they had heard a small dog barking out behind their house. So we went out into the woods with flashlights calling and searching for several hours with no results. Needless to say we were heartbroken that we had not found her in the 4 days of constant searching. But we also did not find her on the side of the road so were more hopeful that she was alive somewhere.

Monday unfortunately I had to return to work. Life goes on even if your heart is broken. I stopped down where we had placed her crate and all the food was gone! I was so excited. I didn't think a wild animal would eat it as it was in her crate with her bedding and had our smell all around the area. Also that there was some pepperoni stuff in the food that my dogs love, but T'qila didn't like it and it was still in the bowl. I was certain we had found the area she was in and it would just be a case of spotting her and coaxing her with food. For days we continued to put food in the crate, morning and evening. I had been told that dusk and dawn would be the best chance of spotting her, as dogs revert to instict very quickly when lost. I got up and would go down there and watch til the sun came up then off to work. I would leave work and drive there and stay til the sun went down, all the time hoping just to have a glimpse. This went on for 3 weeks. We had gotten a catch and release trap from a friend and had that set up and the food kept disappearing but never anything in the trap. All this time we never saw any animal near the crate or trap but the trap would be sprung sometimes with nothing in it. I thought we needed a bigger trap. Also in this area one of the vacant homes had motion sensor lights and we had seen them come on but could never see what set them off. I now think that they may have been on a timer, but who knows.

It was getting harder and harder to get up the energy to go out and search. I had begun to think that someone had found her and either hadn't seen the flyers or just didn't really care that she was our baby and we missed her. In fact the thought that someone had her and that she wasn't lost out in the woods was what let me sleep at night. As I said, this went on every day. I would go in the A.M before work, Chris would go a couple hours behind me and then Christian and Michelle would go around lunch time, then I would go after work and then Chris would go on her way home and then around 8-9pm we would go for a final look and then it would go on the next day.

It was hard having people ask and then have them say she was gone. We would never see her again, it's been too long ect. We never gave up. It wasn't a possibility until I knew for sure what had happened to her. I kept praying that we would at least catch a glimpse of her or someone would but in 3 weeks that never happened. In this 3 weeks we had really cold nights(20') and several days of pouring rain. I was thankful that tho it was raining it was fairly mild except for the first couple of days.

Thankgiving morning dawned bright and sunny after several days of rain. It was colder tho. I got a late start as I slept in and didn't go to "our spot" until after 8.On my way down the road I dropped off the orange vest my neighbors had let me borrow when we first started looking. Hunting season was finally over, tho there is no hunting on the side of the road that we were searching on. I had intended several times to return the vest but they were never home when I went by. I later found out that Bo had had a heart attack the week that they loaned me the vest and that they had been in the hospital for the past 2 weeks. I took Charo with me and we walked all around all the empty cottages and called to T'qila and looked under houses, sheds ect. Nothing. I did see some young men working on the porch of one of the houses and asked it they had seen a dog that looked like Charo in the area but they hadn't. They promised to keep an eye out for her. I got back  to my car and we headed home after another fruitless search. I was going to wait for it to warm up a bit more and then take one of the other dogs out walking with me. Chris was busy cooking the turkey. On the way home I saw Bonnie, my neighbor walking between my house and hers and she was crying. I thought OMG her husband is sick again. She flagged me over and said that she had found her. I was like "found who"?. She said T'qila, I found her. I just dropped her off with Chris. She said she needs a vet and all I could think was she had been hit by a car or something. I flew the last few feet up my drive and Chris was holding T'qila and crying and I was crying and she said she's so skinny. It was shocking how truely skinny she was. I immediately called our emergency vet and took her there to have her gone over and they kept her overnight giving her electrolytes and did blood work to see if she had any infections ect. Her blood work came back fine and she was eating drinking and eliminating.

After coming home from the vet I stopped at the Lewis's home and thanked Bonnie again for finding T'qila and bringing her home. It was then that I learned that T'qila was found exactly where we had thought she was the first few days she was lost. We had gone there for over a week and still went by there everyday and never saw or heard her. Bonnie said she had been walking with a cousin and that they usually didn't get quite as far as they did that day. She said she thought she heard a dog but then passed it off as the seagulls. Then she heard it again and turned around and saw T'qila's ears sticking up from the fork of a pine tree. Amazing that she saw her if not for those huge Crestie ears.

I can go pick her up this morning and then we can begin to bring our baby back to health again.

I know this is long and I will probably rewrite parts of it when I have time. I just wanted everyone to know T'qila's story and that for anyone who has lost a dog, DON'T EVER GIVE UP!!!! I just knew in my heart that T'qila would be found on Thanksgiving day. I didn't know what condition she would be found in, but I knew that my worrying and wondering would have closure. I am so very greatful that the outcome is a happy one. And I have to thank all my friends on ABFAB and Crestedallsorts and the ClassicCresteds Forum for all the prayers and candles that they lit for T'qila. And all of our friends that while not optimistic of a happy outcome still supported us in our efforts to find T'qila. Special thanks to Super and Sandy for their help and their prayers . I truley believe that all the prayers made such a clamor in God's ear that he could do nothing else but let T'qila come home.

I will update T'qila's story as the time goes on and she regains her strength and weight. Please keep her in your prayers that she will recover from her adventure without any problems. I feel that she is a survivor and wouldn't have made it as far as she did to give up now that she is safe again.

T'qila is home and happy to be here! She's doing great. Really skinny and a bit unsteady on her feet but I think we will see a huge improvement in the next few days. I already see an improvement from yesterday.