September 2009
Many of the volunteers in our lost dog recovery network look at Craigslist every day, and one day there was a post about a stray beagle hanging around a neighborhood in Alexandria (in our Northern Virginia area) for several weeks. Seems that a lot of the neighbors were feeding it and working together to try, unsuccessfully, to capture it. I guess they finally got the idea to post a Craigslist ad looking for someone trying to find their lost beagle.
Up to this point, we had only looked for people’s lost dogs, never the owners of stray dogs. But in that process, we’d learned about capturing at large dogs. So we decided to respond to the CL ad by offering help even though the dog wasn’t ours and we didn’t know who it belonged to.
So some volunteers were assigned to seek out people who had lost a beagle, such as checking shelter reports and online missing pet ads. Other volunteers began participating with the neighbors to monitor the feeding station. With our knowledge of trapping and camera use, and our connections to procure loaners of these items, we expanded the operation by bringing them in.
When the camera we installed captured a few shots of the dog, one volunteer was assigned to post another appeal on Craigslist to someone looking for a lost beagle, but this time with a couple of photos.
A woman responded pretty quickly by email, saying she had been staring and staring at the picture, and she was 99% sure it was her dog. She shared a picture of her Luna, and our many volunteers that studied the pictures of the two dogs were kind of split, with a few more agreeing it was possible that the two dogs were one and the same.
I saw numerous similar markings between the dogs in the two pictures -- a smudge on the face between the eye and the ear, a marking around the shoulder or above the elbow, the way the black faded to tan along the dog’s hind leg. On top of that, the woman mentioned that her dog is crazy about tennis balls, and we’d just finished reading a volunteer’s report of his overnight monitoring, during which he had tried interesting the dog with a tennis ball. While the dog didn't come to him, it was obvious that this dog is crazy about tennis balls. Sure, lots of dogs are, but it was a little bonus.
The stray beagle; photos captured by a motion sensored camera:
Luna; photo provided by her family:
But the Alexandria neighborhood where the dog had taken up residence is 22 miles from the woman’s Woodbridge home. To travel between the two towns by car, most people take Interstate 95 (which actually connects Maine and Florida, as well). But the simple fact is, Route 1 does run between Alexandria and Woodbridge (and I think also Maine and Florida). It’s a pretty busy route as well, but infinitely more possible than I-95 for a dog to use to travel between the two towns. This woman’s beagle could, without question, get from Woodbridge to Alexandria using Route 1.
So, since the dog was seen constantly at any and all hours of the day and night, we advised the woman that she could come at ANY time and most likely be able to see the dog, although the sooner the better, of course.
She came out with Luna’s favorite treats, and her own smelly t-shirt in case the dog didn’t show and she needed to leave her scent. She initially said she would bring the other dog at home that hasn't been eating much since Luna disappeared. Instead, she showed up without the companion dog, but with her two small kids and her disabled mother. Two of our volunteers were on hand. The family walked up and down a couple of the roads the beagle has been seen on, calling Luna’s name. (I don't think our volunteers wanted them to do that, but they did.)
As they were walking back up one road, the dog popped her little head out of the woods just around the corner from where they were. She stood in the ditch watching them, and our volunteers instructed them to get down on the ground. At this point, they were on the sidewalk, across the street from where the dog was watching them. As the dog slowly emerged from the woods, her tail was tucked and she was hesitant at first. When she was about half-way across the road, I guess they came into focus, or she finally recognized them for sure, and she tore the rest of the way across the street to them! The woman scooped her up, and Luna was licking the kids like crazy! She was just so excited and happy!
The woman told our volunteer that when she first posted on Craigslist after Luna went missing (thanks to the gate having been left open and no one knowing it when they let her out in the yard), she received two sightings via email. She followed up on them, and they both placed a dog matching Luna's description along Route 1, part way between Woodbridge and Alexandria.
So this was a new experience for our group -- helping a stray dog find its family as opposed to helping a family find its lost dog! As it happened, Luna's mom was the most ungrateful person I've probably ever met in all my life, which didn't add to the experience. But if I forget about that, it's a nice memory.
The blog maintained by the volunteers for the stray dog is at http://findtaylor.blogspot.com
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