I actually had this happen back in the fall. I never, ever, in a million years thought my dogs would get out. They're usually crated during the day and my house is locked and in a neighborhood where there's a lot of retirees watching to make sure nobody breaks in. But in this case it appears a perfect storm of bad karma was heading my way.
First my 15 year old cat died (nothing to do with this, but just the kick-off of the storm). Two days later I had to euthanize Quinn, my 10 year old husky, because of lymphoma; he didn't move much. For the last few weeks of his life, Quinn wasn't crated while I was at work. But I crated the others, including Eli, my 13-14 year old husky. So the week after Quinn passed, I decided to let Eli and Avery, the 2 year old wild child, have run of the house while I was at work. Special treat for them and I know they're fairly trustworthy.
It was a day when we had some serious wind coming through. Remains of a hurricane or something like that. And when I left the house that morning, the throw rug I keep at the front door got caught up in the door, unknown to me. Sure enough, the wind blew the front door open.
So, naturally, Avery and Eli decided to go for a stroll.
My neighbor saw them and went over to catch them. Both dogs took off running. Of course they did, one is a husky and one is half husky and that's what huskies do. Neighbor called them and amazingly Avery, the ADHD psycho terrier, came right to her. Nobody will ever convince me that recalls don't work!!! Avery has been through family dog training and has been in agility training for over a year. She has an emergency recall word and also a plain-old recall. I was thrilled beyond belief to hear she actually responded (to a stranger no less).
Neighbor got Avery back in the house and the front door closed securely. Meanwhile Eli, who in addition to being over 10 years old with no street smarts was also deaf and senile, took off and was nowhere to be seen. When I got home from work, my neighbor came over to tell me what was going on. By this time it had been several hours since Eli had been seen.
I jumped into my car to start driving around looking for him and had a complete breakdown. First the cat died, then the dog died, now the other dog is missing? I don't even know where to look for him. The only glimmer of hope was that I work for the animal shelter and we hadn't had any calls about a stray husky running at large or being injured by a car. I could only hope that somebody had seen him and taken him in.
I went around the block to enlist the neighborhood kids to help me search and there was Eli, standing in the yard with them. They said they came home from school and he was just walking down the street going for a stroll. He apparently spent the afternoon running all over the neighborhood because he was so exhausted when I got him home he slept like a rock.
From that day on I crated the dogs when I left. I also double checked the door when I left. Few weeks later Eli passed on from natural causes. Few weeks after that my friend came over and put in a new front door guaranteed not to blow open during those rare Indiana hurricanes.
So at least I now know that if Avery gets loose she'll more than likely come to anyone who calls her. Brogan is a very shy dog and would probably avoid people altogether. Fenway, having been a stray before coming to the shelter, would probably survive just fine. Still being a puppy, he'd probably just find some nice person to bring him back to the shelter.