So last night around 10 I let Conrad out by himself to get a last potty in before bed while I made up their next morning's Kongs. Five minutes later, I opened the door expecting to see him standing there waiting to be let back in, as per his usual attitude towards being outside by himself. But I opened the door, and no Conrad.

I called. No Conrad, not even a tinkle of his tags.

I put my shoes on and went out to the yard, expecting him to run up to me as he always does (he's such a momma's boy). But no Conrad.

Prepare to start freaking out in 3, 2, 1.... I called DH and told him I couldn't find Conrad and he came running from the TV room. Our yard is not big. We live in the city and while we have some shrubbery that sometimes the dogs hide behind, not being able to find a large dog in our yard is pretty much an impossibility.

I grabbed the dog whistle and Conrad's food bowl with some pieces of kibble in it (it's a metal bowl so the sound of kibble hitting it really carries). I just assumed there was a hole somehow in our back fence and he'd gone down into the woods so I aimed my calling and whistling that direction, but I couldn't even hear his tags tinkling from down there or footsteps in the leaves.

DH went back in the house to get the flashlight and while he was inside, I heard someone's voice a couple doors down calling to a dog. Maybe their dog, maybe Conrad, it was hard to hear what they were saying. So I go back through the house, and find DH at the front door, letting Conrad in, who is just as pleased with himself as could be. I gave him his bowl of food that I'd been rattling and quietly had a series of small heart attacks.

He was gone for maybe a total of 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour. I can't fault his recall--he came back pretty quick and without any fuss or game-playing (he used to have absolutely horrible recall and even when he did come back he'd get within like 3 feet of you and play the "can't catch me" game, so taking a minute or two to come back when he's half a block away and totally free is a huge, major improvement). He just came back to a different door than the one he went out.

I do have a hypothesis on how he got out and where, barring me finding any gaping holes in the fence upon inspection when I get home today. And it would explain why he didn't go into the woods but instead wound up around the front of the house, and also why he couldn't come back the way he went out (it's a one-way sort of egress point). So that will have to be repaired and Conrad is on lock-down for a while--no unsupervised time outside, or on the tie-down if someone can not be standing next to him watching him like a hawk.  And some remedial work for an even faster recall.

I'm going to start counting my gray hairs. Jiminy christmas.