Third times the charm

Friday the 5th of February Cody drove to Albian Nebraska (2.5 hrs away) and got a 1/2 Great Piraniese and 1/2 Chocolate Lab puppy from a family that was giving it away. The puppy was 11 weeks old and was wonderfully cute. The puppy didn't like the drive home very much and when Cody got her home she would hardly hold her head up. She appeared really car sick. Cody and the kids went to the barn with her to get the kennel set up for her. She was walking very sickly around the barn and wandered over to the door where she waltzed out and then when in the open she ran off.
The whole family was devistated. 3 hours later and after involving the neighbor boy (a very kind 15 year old) and wandering around a 20 acre grove of trees tracking her in the snow we were ready to give up. We were sure we had lost her. We knew she had been living in a place where she and her mother served as the guard dogs for a goat herd so we went to tell our neighbor that she might show up there and had the idea that maybe a goat at our house would attract her back. Maleah and Cody came and told me that they were thinking about buying one of our neighbors goats and I told them I thought that was ridiculous and maybe we could just borrow one. So, anyway, they walked down to talk to the neighbor and called some friends who own goats to ask their opinion. Deciding that it wasn't a good idea to borrow somone's livelyhood they decided that maybe the best idea was to trade a round bail of hay for a goat. Maleah suggested that only one person would know if that was going to work and that they should pray about it. Maleah and Cody knelt in the middle of the dark street near the neighboor's house and prayed. Cody wanted Maleah to feel the importance of her answer and so after praying asked what she felt. She said she felt that they should get a goat. They made the deal and the neighbor, being the great neighbor he was sent them home with 2.
Now back on the farm, they put the goats in the barn separated so they would make lots of noise but not until they had taken one near the grove of trees and let it make a bunch of noise in hopes of getting the puppies attention. After watching for a while with no return of the dog we all prayed and went to bed.
The next morning Cody got up to go to the National Guard and checked on the barn. Low and behold there was the puppy snuggled up next to the pen with the goat just wagging it's tail. He told Jessica who as usual was up playing on the computer at 6am. Jess couldn't keep it to herself and came and woke me up to tell me. She said Mom I have good news and bad news. I said what's the bad news. She said, there isn't any but the good news is that the puppy came back. Needless to say I couldn't get back to sleep and now we are going on 2 whole days with the puppy. Pray for us on this one our track record with dogs isn't so good. (First dog, Lady, we had for only about 6 weeks and then got run over by a wonderful old couple that we love and forgave imediately. Our second dog Sara we had for about 3 months before being shot by a racist psycho neighbor, a story for another day.)

Picture of the answer to our prayers