Against all expectations, Zoe came home on Sunday afternoon.

I had just posted three lost-dog signs around the mountain and was sitting in the living room when I got a call from a neighbor up around the curve towards the top of the mountain. She said she just saw our dog running down the street past her house. I didn’t think it was really her, but by the time I got my shoes on and ran out the back door, she was running up the driveway.

This was a happy dog, and hungry, although she didn’t show any signs of malnourishment. She has always been a chow hound, so it’s hard to tell whether she was hungrier than normal. We went ahead and fed her as if she had not been eating. After all, her last meal at home was five days earlier.

We have no idea what happened to her, or how she ended up coming back when she did. She had left with a long harness-leash attached to a second long leash. When she got back, her harness-leash had been chewed off right about where her mouth would have reached. So, did she get hung up somewhere and finally chew her way free? Probably not. We had a pretty strong storm and lots of rain Saturday night, and she showed no sign of having been outside in it. Her coat was clean and dry.

Did someone take her? The neighbor who called to let us know she was on her way said she saw a car stopped in the road, and then saw Zoe running by her house. She did not see where Zoe actually came from, so we don’t know whether someone let her out of the car, or the driver just stopped because Zoe was running in the middle of the road.

I do have to apologize for suspecting someone of harming her, although that suspicion gave me some peace of mind in an odd way — not having to worry about whether she was trapped outside in the weather or in pain somewhere. I still believe that she would have come home if she had been able to, but whatever her story is, we will almost certainly never know. All I know now is that we are really happy, not to mention extremely surprised, to have her back. And I won’t be letting her off leash any time soon.