Night out on the tiles

Let the dogs out last thing last night. Getting them back in I noticed Blottie had yet to come in. So I walked around to the front of our home expecting her to be lied up watching for the comings and goings of the animals that frequent our boundary hedge, but she was not there, and I walked with a bit of pace back to the house to check if Toby had come in. No Toby, that most probably meant they had somehow gone off for a night on the tiles. We found their escape route. Somewhere they could only just squeeze through, but last night with a warm storm blowing up the smells of the woodlands around us, was beckoning them with a loud inhaler. 
So we went out for an hour calling and trying to find them, but with high winds and pitch darkness, we called the search off and resumed at first light, reporting them lost to the dog warden at 9 am  in case they had been picked up, as they had been out then for 10 hours. I also went to the local village shop and local animal feed mill in case anyone came in telling of two spaniel dogs being found. Nearly 10.30 am and I then go back to an area already searched calling their names and finally they emerge from a bit of woodland within shouting distance of our home. Walking with very tired legs past a flock of sheep that just give them a casual glance. Thankfully, they have never shown any interest in sheep. I have even had reports from farmers who have found them, enjoying watching them working through a hedge of a field full of sheep unperturbed by their company. 
I was so pleased to see them and it was home to check them over, bath them and feed them. We don't live in a perfect world and my dogs can escape very occasionally, although I don't consider Toby and Blottie thought they had escaped. They had just ceased the opportunity of a loose bit of picket fencing  and followed the beckoning of the heady olfactory cocktail the storm blew up last night. They are both tired and Toby's eyes have taken a battering. You think he might know better, as he approaches nine years old in a couple months time, to be spending a night out on the tiles.