What a scare!

Oh my! This morning was quite eventful around our house. Emery woke me up at 7:30 so we ate breakfast and I decided I'd do a little baking while Emery played in the Tupperware cabinet (he loves getting everything out of there and leaving things scattered throughout the house, by the way). About 30 minutes in to the baking session I smell a burning smell. Great. Sure enough, it had spilled on to the bottom of the oven and was now burning and creating a disgusting smell. I opened up the doors, turned on the fan, and shut the oven off. I also opened the garage door a crack to get the air circulating through the house. A few minutes after all of that calmed down, I settled Emery in for his morning nap. After laying him down I realized I hadn't seen Red for a few minutes. He was outside in the fenced-in backyard while the smoke and smell were calming down in the house. I figured maybe he was still out there after I had shut the doors. I went out to look. No Red. Then, I freaked. I came back inside, quietly opened Emery's door thinking maybe Red was in Em's room. No Red. No Red downstairs. No Red in the living room, bedroom, or bathroom. Then it hit me. Red had gotten into the garage when the kitchen door was open and out the garage door when I had it cracked to get the air flowing. Crap. Panic set in and I realized he was gone. I ran outside and called for him. I ran down our cull-de-sac calling for him. No Red. I decided to call my neighbor on her cell phone to see if she saw him by chance. She answered and she and her husband came outside to help me look for him. I couldn't leave Emery home sleeping without anyone there, so they went in their car to search for Red. I called Patrick and my mom and ended up in tears picturing Red smashed in the middle of the road all because I was stupid and left the doors open for him to escape. I kept walking around our cull-de-sac calling his name and talked to some other neighbors to see if they had seen him. About 20 minutes later, my neighbor came back. They had found Red! But, he wouldn't come to them. He was still on the loose...probably a good 1/2 mile from our house. I hopped in the car while my neighbor stayed at our house with Emery. I drove to where they said Red was. No Red. I turned around and drove back through again. Still no Red. I made one more attempt and out of the corner of my eye Red came barreling down the side walk in a full run. Soaking wet! He must have taken a dip in the neighborhood pond! I jumped out of the car and called for him and he came running right to me. It was as if he was lost and didn't know how to get home and was so happy to see me. We came home, I thanked the neighbors more than I probably should have, gave Red a bath, and we both calmed down all before Emery even woke back up from his nap. What a morning. Thank God we found him. That dog may be a pain-in-the-butt sometimes, but he's my pain-in-the-butt, and I love him!!