[CeYuPe]

So I have a lab/golden retriever mix that was given to me about a year ago. A couple months ago, before we were able to get her fixed, she was impregnated by another lab and had a litter of 8 puppies. 1 died shortly after birth and another died mysteriously about a week later. Due to the unplanned nature of this, we simply do not have enough room for 6 more dogs to the family so we began giving them away to good homes (friends, relatives, etc.). After giving the remaining 3 girls and 2 boys away we were left with one little boy, solid black with a white stripe from his chin to his chest. I feel like I had a bond with this certain little puppy that no one else seemed to want so we decided to keep him as an addition to the family in order to keep from giving him to an animal shelter. After watching him grow up these past few weeks I have gotten really close to the little guy and he is as friendly as he can be. However, whenever you start petting him or paying attention to him, my older dog (his mother) gets extremely jealous and will stare him down as if he is some stranger she has never seen before, and will frequently even bite him, but it has never been just an extreme problem.

Now earlier today I had both of them out feeding them and letting them exercise. I had been keeping my older dog leashed up whenever I let her out, in order to train her to stay around the house, enough to allow her to run all over the yard, but not too much to allow her to get into the road. Also when I kept her leashed up it would keep the puppy safe from getting in the road as well. But for the past little while I have been letting her run free around the house because I feel she is old enough to stay around and she does usually does not leave, however, today was different. Today she decided to run off just as I had walked inside the house to refill her water bowl. But not only did just she run off, but my little puppy also went with her. I saw them both running up the hill in my neighbors front yard behind my house. I yelled for them, but to no avail, they kept going like they were on a mission. I figured they were just happy to be walking around today as it was very warm, in the 70s, and felt extremely good outside today after being very frigid last week. I called and called for them hoping they would return, I even drove down the road asking neighbors if they had seen them around. I eventually assumed that they would return whenever they got ready and there's nothing I could do about it. About 2.5 hours later I go outside to get something from my truck and I hear noises coming from the dog house, I go around to investigate and I find my older dog lying inside the house, she will not come out, just sit and stare at me. I look around and my little dog is nowhere to be found.

It has been about 30 minutes to an hour since she returned and still no sign of the little guy. I'm getting worried about him as he is too small to defend himself without his mother, especially with all of the coyotes and raccoons in my area. And with the ice storm moving in sometime tomorrow night, I know he won't stand a chance out in the weather alone. I fear something bad has already happened to him, however, I am trying to keep a positive look on things as I have grown pretty attached to him in the short amount of time we have had him.

Now my question, why would she do this? Just lead him into the woods and abandon him. I've heard of dogs doing this, however, this is my first dog (since I was a kid anyways) so I really don't understand. What makes dogs do this? Is it natural? Sorry for the lengthy post, I am just really emotionally stressed right now. Especially with the series of events that has unfolded within the past few weeks. If anyone takes the time to read and respond to this, it is greatly appreciated.