The Long Way Back

We called her in like we always do.It was late. The dogs had been out for their usual evening wee. The house was quiet, the bed calling.I had a fly swatter in my hand, an afterthought really. One of those small, everyday things you barely register.

But Effie did.

In a split second, she bolted.

No warning. No bark. Just gone and vanished into the woods like smoke, as if the last four years of safety had never happened.

We searched for hours: torches scanning the brambles, voices cracking from calling. I kept thinking, she’s fine now, she’s been with us for years, she knows she’s safe. But trauma doesn’t care about calendars. It doesn’t check how long you’ve been in a good place before it reacts.

Effie came to us on a snowy evening, nervous and vocal, after being passed through six homes in just eight months. In one of them, she’d been kept in a cage for sixteen hours a day.

When she arrived here, she didn’t sleep deeply for weeks. She’d bark at the wind. Pace if we stood up too fast. She was a dog built for survival, not stillness.

And yet over time, she softened. Became affectionate. Playful. Steady.

We thought that part of her, the bolting, was over.

But the nervous system has its own memory. One that lives in the body long after the paperwork says “safe.”

At 1 am, we gave up searching. Not because we stopped caring, but because we knew chasing wasn’t the way back. So we sat. We waited. We stayed near the spot she ran from and trusted something old between us. And at 2:30 am, she came back. Slowly.Head low. Ears back.Panting, uncertain. Watching us like she was still expecting harm. We didn’t scold. We didn’t reach too fast. We just said her name gently and stayed put. Eventually, she curled into my side and exhaled. And I did too.

We’re quick to assume time heals all. But the truth is, healing isn’t a one-way street. It loops. It lingers. It gets triggered by things that seem ridiculous — until you remember what the body remembers.

To Effie, it wasn’t a fly swat. It was a threat. Not in this moment, but in one long gone that still lives in her muscles, her breath, her instincts. And haven’t we all done something similar?

Pulled away from someone kind.

Snapped when we felt cornered.

Left before we could be left.

Bolted emotionally or mentally when something stirred a fear we thought we’d outgrown.

Effie’s flight wasn’t a failure. It was a flare.

A reminder that the work is never about perfection. It’s about safety, real, lived-in, nervous-system-deep safety and how we respond when it gets shaken. That night, we didn’t fix anything. We just showed up and stayed still long enough for her to find her way back.

That’s what trust looks like. Not a leash.Not control. Just a quiet presence and the patience to let someone remember they’re safe.

With torchlight in my pocket and a little more tenderness than before,

Sarah x

From the Forest Edge