Debbie is an early riser, and she lets her two dogs out into the fenced back yard every morning at 4 when she gets up. Last Sunday she did this, but unfortunately as it turns out, a piece of the fence had been damaged by a recent storm. She figured it out when she noticed the motion sensored light go on at the front of the house, which never happens at that hour, so she immediately investigated it. Annie, the lab, was right back home. Her sister Zoe, a 9 year old Australian Shepherd that had been with the family all her life, was already gone!
By that afternoon, Debbie’s grown daughters had begun spreading the word electronically, on Craigslist and a couple of other missing pet websites. A number of us in our informal lost dog recovery network regularly cruise Craigslist looking for lost dogs we might help find, so we knew about Zoe by Sunday evening. A couple of our volunteers reached out by email to offer our help, and by Monday afternoon, we were fully involved.
Debbie was having a pretty had time of it with Zoe gone, and off in parts unknown, I know. But she was clearly willing to do whatever it took to get her home. One bit of luck that was on her side is her job -- she happens to have easy going management and enough stockpiled leave that she was able to disappear, with no advance notice. She would have been worthless at work, and it was clear. She she was on the job of searching for Zoe 24-7, starting Monday afternoon, following a failed attempt to go to work the same way you do when your dogs are safe at home.
There was a flurry of activity on Monday afternoon and evening as we gave Debbie and her daughters one thing after another to do, which spilled in to Tuesday. By the afternoon, some tips started coming in and Debbie was out the door in a flash, investigating. Sighting calls basically kept coming. But by the end of Wednesday, while everyone was busy fliering, checking with the shelter, setting up and monitoring feeding stations, and performing electronic outreach to spread the word, we realized that there were no sightings that actually occurred on Wednesday. There were only some calls of sightings that had occurred Monday or Tuesday.
Then Thursday, Zoe started turning up a distance away from where the Monday and Tuesday sightings were, according to calls coming in, though still not terribly far from home. It seemed she really was trying to get home. Debbie was at one site no more than five minutes after Zoe was seen, but her girl had managed to slip out of sight.
Thursday slipped away too, into Friday, with still no Zoe. Annie was spending all her time watching out the front window for her sister to come home.
By Friday morning, there had been several hot tips, and Debbie had been great about shooting an alert out to our Find Zoe listserv and Facebook group when she would get one and dash out to check on it. So we knew about it when she got a live sighting call over by the high school (back closer to the first sighting area). We could only wait (most of us are nowhere near the area during the business day, if ever).
Now cut to what was happening at the high school site.
Another Debbie was out for her walk or jog when she saw Zoe trotting along. As a resident of the neighborhood, she'd seen the fliers and figured this was the dog being sought. She immediately went to go find a phone, which took her a few minutes to get to, to call the number.
While she was doing that, Zoe was busy getting caught up in some briars! That stopped her, and it did so in view of a girls sports team, or class, at the school which was nearby. A half dozen or so girls worked to free her from the briars, but not from their grip on her collar. They led her inside the building where they stashed her in the restroom while they finished the class. (I guess that’s what they did; it gets a little fuzzy here!)
As the girls and their coach, or teacher, were heading back into the building, up drives a woman asking if they’ve seen an Australian shepherd around there somewhere. They had a few seconds of fun with that, simply saying, "Yes, we have," and making the woman have to ask where they last saw her. The adult simply said, “in my bathroom.” Debbie practically lost it at that point! Then the other Debbie appeared, the one whose call was responsible for Zoe’s mom knowing where to find her girl. So the gang was now all there for the emotional reunion!
The girls were crying too, as they all witnessed it, and I’m sure that Friday was a big day for them. What fun to think about how many times they must have repeated their story to their school friends! And on top of that, the girls sports program is getting a nice little reward out of it that will help out with the purchase of supplies that they need so badly.
For the first time all week, Debbie and everyone in her family were finally able to do some very sound sleeping Friday night!
Zoe, back home again, and her sister Annie
More information, including Debbie's version of the story, at http://findzoe.blogspot.com/
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