Here's the reunion story for those who were curious:
After walking around the neighborhood for an hour with my little girl dog, Lily, I went home to start calling shelters and animal services and heard from the Berkeley shelter that a big black long-haired dog was spotted on the freeway headed toward Emeryville (my heart just about gave out at that point and I started thinking the worst). Another sighting moments later led me to Borders Books in Emeryville (I had no idea Bear was an intellectual). So I immediately drove out to Emeryville with Lily and started my foot patrol out there. After two hours of searching to no avail Lily laid in the grass and would not budge. I started calling non-emergency lines from El Cerrito to Oakland thinking that increasing my number of eyes would help me find him. When Lily finally allowed me to drag her back to the car I drove around for another hour or so and gave up. I went back home to print out flyers (of course that was the day my printer decided to die, but luckily I had my old inkjet printer that my sister had run laser paper through - it still prints, but it looks bad). SO my second trip to Emeryville entailed putting up posters and talking to everyone I saw. At about 7 o'clock I realized I was starving and needed to feed Lily as well - I ate McDonald's because I was afraid if I cooked I'd have to leave it if I got a call. It was the best McDonald's I ever ate I was so hungry. I had given up on the search by then. At 9 o'clock I get a call from Emeryville dispatch asking if I'm still looking for my dog - they had a big black fluffy dog cornered in a corporate park on Hollis and 59th. An angel of a woman, Brenda of San Francisco, had seen him trying to cross San Pablo Avenue, which if you know the area you know that it's the busiest street for a black dog to try to cross at night. This beautiful angel followed him and since she was in white (how fitting!) she stopped cars and helped him get across safely. She followed him some more and along the way stopped a police officer who had heard the bulletin about Bear being at-large. So my third trip to Emeryville was successful! He was so happy and extremely thirsty. I feel so blessed that everyone in the big dog scommunity here prayed for Bear's safe return - he was sent an angel to help him get home. Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and paryers. Bear is doing well and made it around four blocks yesterday - his feet are still sore... but he'll heal. And hopefully he'll never do this again. But if he does, at least I've got him micro-chipped now...
