In the Blink of an Eye

Mercy on the job in Washington DC.

Sometimes it only takes a second for things to go horribly wrong.
In May we journeyed to Washington DC, part business and part pleasure. We saw some great sights over the weekend and relaxed at the pool. My son finally even got over his fear of elevators or at least for the one in the hotel - which was a godsend. Due to the way the stairs were configured it was nearly impractical to use them every time we had to go out, and there was no public access to go back up.
Mercy was wonderful. She had a session with the groomer before we left and she looked absolutely beautiful. I am not exaggerating. I cannot tell you how many people literally said she was the most gorgeous dog they had ever seen. One fellow even stopped in his tracks and said "That dog should be on TV!"  But besides looking great she had been a model of service dog behavior for the whole trip. She traversed shiny floors, elevators, crowded noisy streets, busy stores, heeled beautifully during our walks, sat quietly while people petted her, did perfect 'unders' in the restaurant and assisted her boy in a few meltdowns. While I was in the seminar she behaved nicely for my sister and hung out with Chris in the hotel room. She quickly became popular as several other travelers in the hotel began to call her by name.

The road where Mercy went running.

And then the unthinkable happened...
After we checked out of the hotel we were waiting  out in front by the street for our van to pull Suddenly an intense gust of wind hit us, knocking down our luggage and blowing some of my work papers all over the sidewalk. While we scrambled to get a hold of the papers and gather the strewn luggage the leash had somehow come off of my arm. Then for some reason Mercy thought it was time for a romp and dashed across the street toward the construction lot where I had walked her earlier.
I began to panic. This was absolutely the worst place I could think of for something like this to happen. We were in a very busy part of town during the noon hour, and one of the streets led into a busy four lane highway. Worst of all, a train was roaring by and it was obvious that she couldn't hear my call. She was in a full speed run in the opposite direction and I was terrified that she was going to get hit. Chris was right behind me and I could hear the terror in his voice as well. It was heart wrenching.  I began to run after her (probably the very last thing I should have done) and of course when she finally saw me she acted like we were playing a great game. I had hoped to be able to catch her in the lot, but then she ran toward the street that led to the two lane highway. If she went that way it would be over for sure. My heart lurched as we ran after her. I couldn't imagine what I would do if something happened to her, especially like this. At this point I knew I couldn't chase her much longer. I could barely breathe. The train was still roaring past and the noise from the highway added to the chaos. Chris was screaming for her and then suddenly she must have heard him and turned away from the highway and came running toward us. Chris got a hold of her collar and had her, as we all stopped totally exhausted. Suddenly the excitement had overwhelmed him and he shut down, right there on the highway, his arms around his dog laying on the ground. Thankfully a wonderful army woman had joined our pursuit and was now trying to help me get Chris off the road.
We later talked to the trainers about the incident and were advised that we needed to work on making her go into a down when her leash was dropped. I confess we had not been working on that but now realize just how important it is. Jeremy also suggested getting a whistle to use when in loud areas and to practice calling her with it. We have some homework to do, no doubt! In hindsight I also realize that I should have made holding Mercy my first priority - if you are handling your dog in such an area don't try to be doing anything that will compromise your attention or ability to hold on to them.
Later we realized how lucky we were and that it must have been an act of divine intervention that there was no traffic on that stretch of road during that whole time.