Something that I’ve always been adamant about is writing what I want to write. The reason for this is simple: I can’t force myself to get excited or interested in writing about something that another person wants me to write about. I learned this the hard way when someone asked me to write about a cruise ship disappearance and, ultimately, I got nowhere.
As a result, I don’t take requests. I’m open to suggestions, of course. If someone suggests a story, I’ll look into it and consider it, but I’m hesitant to even do that. It’s likely I’ll outright forget about it and move on to whatever intrigues me the most.
Like all rules, though, I’m prone to breaking them. For the first time ever, I’m covering a story at the request of a very close friend of mine—one of my best, actually. She’s a friend who’s cheered me on when it comes to writing and is an all-around great person. I would do anything for her, and she would do anything for me.
As misfortune would have it, this very friend recently lost one of her dogs. Apparently, the dog—a female mixed breed named Mercy—disappeared. For the record, neither of us knows the exact breeds. I don’t know any dog breeders, so I can’t ask for identification, and I’m not about to ask around behind my friend’s back.
Anyway, a dog merely running off wouldn’t be something I wrote about. Dogs vanish all the time. More often than not, they run off for one reason or another, though there are instances where someone steals the dog or a predatory animal attacks and kills it, then takes it off as a meal.
Yet, oddly enough, none of those appear to be the case here.
You see, Mercy was an old one. While it’s not unheard of for people to adopt an elderly dog, neither myself nor my friend have heard of someone stealing an elderly dog. On top of that, the entire town knew her. One would think that if a familiar face—even that of a dog—would be seen by someone. Yet, that’s not the case here.
Several weeks later, there’s been no sign of Mercy. No sightings. No fur. No collar. No tracks. Nothing. It’s like she vanished into thin air.
That brings me to this write-up. After consoling my friend as best I could (which amounted to me talking before saying that the whole thing piqued my curiosity), we talked about how odd it was. Fast-forward to today—March 12—and she messaged me over Discord asking if I’d be interested in writing about this. I was surprised at first but immediately smiled and said something I never thought I would say when it came to a request.
I said yes.
Initially, I had planned for this write-up to be posted after another one, but given the circumstances, I figured it’d be rather cruel of me to let it linger and cover it at a later point. But I digress; come along, dear reader! For the first time in this blog’s history, we’ll be covering a mystery tied to a friend of mine! This is The Case of My Friend’s Missing Dog!
