Finding Bear (A True Story)

Monday 17th Jan, 12:35pm

I had been visiting my partner's place for the past few days when my phone suddenly pinged. I glanced down at the illuminated screen of my phone to see a shocking message in the housemate group chat.

We'd only had Bear for a few weeks at that point. He lived in a bottomless wooden cage in the backyard of our share house, which we'd move around each day to give him fresh grass. It was a convenient setup, but it also had one major drawback - if the ground was uneven, Bear could easily slip under the bottom of the cage. From what we could tell, that was exactly what he had done.

After some more discussion, we realised that Bear must have gone missing at some point between Sunday evening and Monday morning. We searched the area, looking for clues as to what happened to him, but aside from a small pile of poo just outside his cage, there was nothing. Bear was gone.

With Bonnie (our much beloved household border collie) away on holiday visiting family, and Bear mysteriously missing, the house was suddenly feeling rather cold and empty.

Thursday 20th Jan, 2:00pm

I had since returned home and spent the afternoon searching the backyard yet again for Bear; in the mulch pile, around the shed, and under the edge of the house. He was no where to be found. It had been four days now since he had disappeared and things weren't looking good for Bear, especially considering how many predatory species lived in this part of Australia: iguanas, snakes, eagles, large spiders... not to mention the various cats and dogs in the neighbourhood.

There was a murder of crows hanging around on the fence line, squawking menacingly and eyeing up anything that made even the slightest movement.

'What if they had found Bear?' I thought to myself with a shudder.

They were certainly prime suspects in the investigation, although the neighbour's cat was fairly high up on the list as well as he'd been known to lurk around the fence which separated the properties in the evening. I had to ask myself at this point:

'Could this be more than just a missing person case? Is there a homicide to uncover?'

Just the thought of it was stomach churning, but it was certainly a possibility. Sure, there were no signs of foul play at the crime scene, but it was perfectly possible that the crows had swooped down and carried Bear away. Either way though, things weren't looking good for Bear.

Friday 21st Jan, 3:45pm

Seasoned detective and border collie, Bonnie, arrived back at the Cougar Street household today after spending the last month at the Sunshine Coast with family. She had a fresh vigour about her that was difficult to describe, and an interesting fashion sense she'd seemingly retained from her time in the sun.

The rest of the housemates quickly filled her in on the situation, although admittedly we all knew there was little hope of solving the mystery at this point. Previous statistics show that disappearances which aren't resolved within the first 72 hours are almost never resolved, and we were well past 100 hours at this point. We'd all moved past our hopeful stage now and had slipped into a state of grief. But not Bonnie. She was back from her holiday with fresh passion, and a hunger for solving the mystery.

She took a deep breath while she mulled over the evidence (and also chomped down some spare dog biscuits that she'd scattered on the floor while devouring her dinner moments before). It was going to be a long night.

Saturday 22nd Jan, 6:32am

Bonnie was up and ready to solve the mystery at the crack of dawn. With her detective hat on and belly full of snackos, she got to work. She checked each room in the house by first sniffing around, and then taking a closer look under small gaps in the furniture. But alas, the house yielded no further clues.

The rest of the morning was essentially the same. Every time it felt like she might find Bear, it was just a small piece of food on the floor that she could smell, or a stuffed chew toy under the couch. But detective Bonnie didn't give up that easily. By the time the afternoon rolled around, Bonnie had wandered downstairs to get a fresh look at the scene of the crime. The cage was still there in its original location, as was the small pile of poo.

"What do you think happened, Bon?" we asked.

But Bonnie didn't respond, partly because she was deep in thought and processing the information and partly because she was a dog who was incapable of speaking the English language. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth as she licked the handle of the cage, presumably to see if she could taste anything peculiar. Then she waddled off towards the fence on the other side of the yard.

After a few more moments of sniffing around, chewing on long blades of grass, and having a quick wee, Bonnie froze. She let out a startled bark to catch our attention as she stared, eyes bulging, and nose pointing into the grass...

Saturday 22nd Jan, 4:59pm

In an unexpected turn of events, Bonnie had found Bear - alive. He was just sitting there in the backyard munching down on some fresh grass without a care in the world. We were all shocked to say the least. Especially Bonnie; she looked like she had seen a ghost.

Even though Bear was found alive and well, the investigation is still ongoing. He refuses to utter a word about his disappearance and we may never know how or why he left his cage that night, or how he survived almost an entire week by himself in our backyard. But if anyone can figure out the mystery, it's our favourite professional good girl and full time detective, Bonnie.