Mallory, a shepherd mix

Mallory's Capture
Told by Simone Lima

Tue, Aug 18, 2009

Mallory is a sweet, shy little girl who had been rescued as a stray and brought to a high-kill rural shelter. The people in that area who had called the shelter to come get her had been seeing her around the neighborhood for a while, but couldn't seem to locate an owner for her.

Mallory entered the shelter there, and was later pulled from that shelter by a rescue in the Washington DC area. She was then lost after spending a few days living in a foster home with other dogs, where she was warming up to the people who give her affection.

It took about a week and a half of volunteers tracking her as best they could, but a lot of it was waiting games -- waiting to get sightings while they continued to try to get the area fliered. Finally, sightings started coming in so that they got a general location on her, and feeding stations were set up to try to keep her close.

This photo was taken of Mallory before she was lost, but while she was lost, whenever I saw this photo, I always thought, "it must be what she looks like right now, wherever she is."

The story of her capture is told by Simone, one of the volunteers that was assigned to check the feeding stations.

I went out to check the feeding stations. At the third one, on Colorado and 16th, I was lucky to have parked not on the park side where the station was, but accross the street. Just as I was getting out of the car, I heard tags clinking down 16th and thought, "Oh, dog being walked, I should talk to its person".

I ducked back into the the car to pick up a business card so I could give it to the dog's person and then I noticed the dog didn't have a person. OMG, this is her! It's Mallory!

I felt like I had about ten arms and hands and none of them were holding the right thing. But as luck would have it, I had all I needed: a collar, my cell, and a can of food. I was going to call in the sighting first before attempting to throw her treats, but she actually made eye contact with me and trotted in my direction.

I practically lay down on the ground and started throwing wet food to her, slooooooowly, slooowly, until she came right next to me. I let her eat for a while until I could touch her collar.

She pulled back but I was able to secure the leash to her collar and strap it around her as a makeshift harness.

Then comes the funny bit: without letting go of her or getting up, I'm in the rain, lying on the ground, holding as tight and as gently as possible to this contraption AND attempting to use a cell phone with the other hand, while passers-by, well, pass by, looking very amused. I just lie there for a while until she gets a whole can of food in and, while she doesn't want to move in the direction of the car, she is resisting being held by me less and less. T-touch helps calm her down. Or at least I convince myself it's helping, and that helps.

Long story short: I call Stephanie, Daphne calls me, I plop Mallory into the car, squeeeeeze myself in the minimum entryway possible on the other side (I've seen dogs get out from cars I thought a mouse couldn't get out of) and deliver her to College Park, where I am met by a happy volunteer who agrees we need three people to get her out of the car, just to be sure.

Then, she's in the day care, the door is closed and I notice I haven't really had a good, deep breath for a while. I let myself jump around a little and yell Hurray!

Thank you everyone for the opportunity to help and for all I learned.

Simone Lima
(who runs an animal protection organization in Brazil, where we don't have half the technology used here in tracking a lost animal!)

http://findmallory.blogspot.com