Let's start this off with a confession, I occasionally have idiot moments. For example, a few weeks ago, following a Halloween Party at our friend's house, Sara and I got a ride home with a sober driver. The next morning, I walked 6 miles along the ocean side of the airport fence back to the house we had the party at and picked up our car. The idiocy arises from the fact that the three street dogs (creatively named Blackie, Whitey and Oreo; Brownie disappeared over a year ago, but people still ask why Blackie is named that when he's mostly brown, it's because of precedent) we look after and feed followed me on my walk.
It's not unusual for them to walk with us the mile or two out to Airport Beach and hang out while we swim, snorkel and relax. However, this time, I passed right by the beach and kept walking along the sea wall past the airport radio tower and along to the next set of pools and to the point on the South end of the mouth of the Pala Lagoon. The dog kept coming along with me for the walk. This stretch of land is unique in American Samoa as it does not have any wild dogs. The 5 to 40 yard wide stretch of land that borders the airport fence doesn't have any residents for a four mile stretch, so with no one living there, there's no cast off food for wild dogs to sustain themselves. Therefore with no food, there's no packs of dogs.
As we crossed no competing dog pack's territory, there was nothing to discourage the dogs from following me. They followed me the four miles to Lions Park, which is some of the meanest turf for dog packs in American Samoa. Bravely our dogs followed me through, the casually walked through some of the toughest dogs turf. Whitey was the first to turn back, mostly due to getting cut off from the rest of the dogs by a pack in the Park. Oreo made it to the beginning of Tasi Street, where he ended up in a stand off with one of the local dogs and not proceeding any further.
Blackie braved on until the end of Tasi Street, where he fled after getting surrounded by a pack, as I made my final turn into Off-of-Tasi Street. I got in our car and proceeded to start driving back. Oreo was still standing where I left him at the beginning of Tasi Street. Recognizing our car he started to chase it along the Lions Park Road. Once I could see he had made it back to the place where the path back started I sped up. One to discourage him from trying to follow me along the road back and two, to keep from holding up the traffic I had following me as a result of driving 10 mph so that a dog could follow me. I pulled away and the dog didn't see me turn away, so I figured he made it back to the starting point for the trail back. I then proceeded to drive home and fall over for the rest of the day from heat exhaustion.
That evening, none of our dogs had made it back to the house. Sara and I drove to Lion's Park to look for them, but after an hour of hunting around, we didn't see any signs of them.
By the end of the work day on Monday, Whitie and Blackie had filtered back to our house. Both were a little shell shocked and humbled by seeing how the meaner dogs on the island live. However, Oreo, our current favorite didn't make it back. For the next two and a half weeks, we didn't see him. Both Sara and I gave up hope that he'd make it back. Best case, he'd take up with a pack where ever he ended up. Worst case, he was already dead.
It was a bit of a surprise early in the morning when driving home from the gym. Sara was driving and I was staring off into the fenced in grassland that surrounds the airport runway. All of a sudden I saw Oreo standing along the airport fence, only he was on the wrong side of the fence. He was locked in on the runway side. I pointed him out to Sara and we pulled over.
Oreo was a whining, skin and bones version of himself, but it was certainly him. He also had made friends and had another young dog with him. I walked along my side of the fence with the two dogs following along the inside, while Sara drove back to our house to get her phone and the number for the airport. I walked all the way to the gate at the end of the runway and waited. Sara managed to talk to someone at the airport and they said security was on its way to open the gate. Sara also brought some biscuits for the dogs. Which we fed to them through the fence.
Eventually a SUV from Airport Security made it out to the gate and immediately to dogs ran off. In talking with the security officers, we learned that they had been trying to catch Oreo for the last two weeks. Once we asked them to back away, Oreo snuck through the gate. We thanked the guards and then needed to get home and get on with our morning. I walked Oreo back to our house, not wanting to take any more chances that he was going to get lost. Twice he tried to take wrong turns, turns out he's really bad with finding his way home. He made it back OK and so our dog pack is back up to three. Oreo's also been filling out a bit since then and all of the dogs have seemed to recover from their ordeal. Also, I'm an idiot and not allowed to take the dogs on walks anymore.
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