A budding scientist?

This past weekend, my (Jessica's) language teacher invited me to go to a nearby village with hot springs for a small trip, just the two of us. She told me that we would need to leave early in the morning to catch the right ferryboat and so I stayed the night at her house the night before our trip.

I hadn't worn my favorite shoes (pink converse low-tops) in a while, and so I decided to use them for the trip. As is the custom here, when I arrived there, I took off my shoes and left them on the porch. We had a great evening with dinner and meeting lots of her relatives. The next morning, we woke up early, packed up our bags, and headed out to catch our bus. I looked down and saw many shoes on the porch, but could only find one of my pink shoes; the other was missing. She and her mother looked all over for the other one while I sat on the porch hoping they'd be able to find it. They were unable to find it, and so her mom offered me a pair of wooden sandals to use for the trip, as I'd packed no other shoes.

They explained that about 2 years ago, a couple of dogs had come around for a few nights barking and waking them up, and they figured that it must've been the same dog that came and got my shoe and dragged it away.

Last night, as I was relating this story to my captivated audience (Doug & the children), I got to this part of the story and Ethan scrunched up his face and said, "THAT's not a very scientific theory. A dog came around and barked two years ago, and so he must've come back and eaten your SHOE???" We laughed and laughed. Maybe we have a budding scientist on our hands. At the very least, he's developing his logic skills. :)

We still have no idea what happened to my shoe.