Have you ever had something go wrong at the worst possible time? A call comes in with the most DEVASTATING NEWS when you simply have no more capacity. On January 26, 2022, I got that call. It was 5 weeks before our wedding and 6 weeks before Cork & Candles King of Prussia (our first location) was scheduled to open.
Rocky slipped loose from our dog walker and ran off.
At first, you assume it’ll work itself out.
Then you see a video posted by a stranger on Facebook of him running through the streets miles from home… and you realize this is real. We lived in an apartment in Philly and knew there was no easy way for him to get home.
Want to watch the story instead? Click here to view the full episode.
We Did Everything… Except What Worked
For the next few days, we were everywhere.
Driving across the city.
Chasing sightings.
Hanging hundreds of flyers.
Sleeping in shifts.
It was freezing, four degrees, snow on the ground and every day that passed made it feel less likely we’d find him.
We were working nonstop.
But we weren’t getting anywhere.
Looking back, we weren’t following a plan—we were just reacting.
And reacting feels productive… until you realize it’s not.
The Shift
Then we got connected to someone who specializes in finding lost dogs.
This is what she does professionally.
She understands how dogs behave when they’re lost. How they move. How they think. What actually draws them back.
And within one conversation, it was clear:
What we were doing, while well-intentioned, was working against how this actually works.
We were chasing.
We were spreading scent everywhere.
We were creating noise instead of clarity.
She had a system built from experience. From patterns. From seeing this play out over and over again.
And she said something that stuck with me:
“I only work with people who are willing to follow the plan.”
Not suggestions.
Not ideas.
The plan.
At that moment, we had a choice:
Keep doing what felt right…
Or trust someone who actually understood the system behind it.
We chose the plan.
The Hard Part
The plan didn’t feel good.
It meant sitting still when every instinct said to move.
One morning, we got a call that a woman thought she’d seen him in an abandoned house near her home. I raced over. I placed food outside the abandoned house where Rocky had been spotted, and I sat 20 feet away… waiting.
For hours.
Just above freezing, the snow had turned to rain. It was cold, but the plan said to be patient.
At the four-hour mark, I was ready to give up.
Doing nothing felt wrong.
But the plan said: stay.
So I stayed.
When It Clicked
I turned my head away as I called our dog tracker and when I turned back, there he was.
Rocky.
He didn’t even recognize me at first. Two weeks on his own had changed him.
He began to eat the food I’d placed. And after ten minutes, something clicked.
He recognized me, he walked over, put his paws on my lap, and just like that, we had him back.
Want to hear the full story? Watch Episode 4 of Letters to Leo & Charlie below.