Saved?

                                                                 DID I SAVE IT?

                       
                                                               

This week I have been caring for a neighbors dog while they are on vacation; we were in the yard playing "catch" with a tennis ball when a beautiful, large Swallowtail Butterfly crossed paths with the running dog  As improbable as it seems, they must have collided and the butterfly fell to the grass--it was feebly fluttering it's wings and I raced to save it from the jaws of the dog who wanted to make an appetizer out of it  I managed to head the dog off and tried to scoop up the butterfly but it fluttered out of my grasp, only skimming across the grass for a short distance, coming to rest again a few feet away--  Again I tried to gently pick it up and again it flitted a few feet away, I continued to try to pick it up to keep it from the dog--finally I managed to get my hands under it and cautiously lift it up to rest on the top rail of the backyard fence  There it remained, not moving for about 10 minutes  I went in the house but kept peaking out the window to see if it had moved but it remained there during that time I had an appointment to keep and needed to get ready to leave  As I left the house I looked one more time and found  it was gone--When I returned from my meeting and lunch I decided that I should check the ground on the other side of the fence and the bush beside it to see if the beautiful butterfly was anywhere around I scoured the ground and the lilac bush next to the fence but found no evidence of it  Did I save it? Was it stunned and after recovering from the shock, fly away and continue to show off its beauty? Was it snapped up by another predator while it sat motionless on the fence?  From what I have been able to learn on Internet searches the Swallowtail does not have a long lifespan, but my hope is that it recovered from the shock of the collision with the dog and lived out the remainder of its short life