From Penelope’s adoptors:
We adopted Penelope on a Tuesday. On Thursday around 4pm, she got spooked by something and bolted from the house. She was so fast, and we lost track of her.
It's not possible to describe how sick and worried we both felt. We were concerned that she would not have any instinct to try to find her way back home, since she hardly knew our house as home after only two days.
We immediately called the rescue group we'd adopted her through, as well as a friend who organizes searches for lost dogs. She and several other incredible folks volunteer their time to do this; their group is called AWOL Dogs. Thanks to their advice and assistance, within a few hours notices had been posted to our local listserv and Craigslist, a blog had been started, and flyers started going up around our neighborhood.
The search for Penny over the following days included emails and phone calls to area vets, churches, schools, dog walkers, etc, more listserv postings, tons of flyering, and also the assistance of a professional dog tracker.
It was a cold weekend. It snowed and rained on Saturday, which kept some folks away that had planned to come out and help. The bad timing for that kind of weather was so frustrating. I had to tell myself that Penelope was strong and smart, that she'd find a safe place to stay.
On Sunday morning we got an email from Penny's most recent foster mom, who was tireless searching along with us. She said she'd had a dream that Penny was found.
Maybe 30 minutes later the phone rang; I nearly fell over trying to grab it. It was the call we had been hoping for since Thursday! A woman's voice said, “We found Penelope and my neighbor is taking her to the animal hospital right now.” I was putting on my shoes, writing down an address, and crying all at once. My husband was already at the door, car keys in hand, saying, 'Tell me where to drive.'
We arrived at the animal hospital, and met Edward and Dawn, Penny's guardian angels. The vet took us back to see Penny and confirm that it was her. I was nervous that she might not know us, but she did and immediately started licking our hands and faces. The sense of relief was overwhelming.
Now, three weeks later, Penelope is just about 100% healed. She has fully adjusted to seeing with one eye. She is playful, silly, intelligent, and loving. She is a true gift.
From the folks who found Penelope:
Dawn and I were just getting up and about ready to make the bed. I was dawdling, putting on slippers or something, so Dawn started opening the curtains while she was waiting. She noticed a dog coming into our driveway, which we share with our neighbor's Becky Morrison and Geoff Jackson, and Dawn mentioned to me that the dog didn't seem to have an accompanying human. I wanted to rush down right away to check it out, but Dawn insisted on making the bed first.
By the time I got downstairs, the dog had wandered into Becky and Geoff's back yard, digging in the dirt and leaves by the fence. I called and made smooching noises, which seemed to make the dog wary of me. She dashed to the back of the yard and behind the garage. There's a smidgen of fence, though, behind the garage and between our two yards, so the dog was now blocked in with nowhere else to escape.
By this time Geoff had noticed that I was wandering around his back yard, so he came out and asked me what was the deal. I pointed out the dog. It seemed to have mud splashed on its head and eye, or maybe the eye was injured. We couldn't really tell.
We thought maybe we could coax it out with some food. Geoff went inside to get some cat food, while I stood watch, the dog and I watching each other from opposite sides of the garage. I knelt and made soothing cooing and smooching noises while the dog looked at me warily and shivered. I inched closer and closer and the dog let me scratch its shoulder without biting me, so I scooped it up gently and backed out of the small space.
Geoff was returning with a bowl of wet food as I was carrying the dog to our back porch. The dog scurried to the opposite corner of the porch from us and sat & shivered some more, but was hungry enough to scarf up the whole bowl of food. Dawn came out from the kitchen, where she had started to make breakfast, and took one look at the dog's eye and declared we were going to the vet immediately. She got dressed while Geoff and I watched over the dog, then I went and got dressed when Dawn returned.
Dawn and Geoff discussed having seen fliers and a notice on the listerv about a missing dog, so Geoff volunteered to do some research to find the owners while Dawn and I drove to Friendship Animal Hospital in Tenleytown, which we knew was an emergency hospital because we had taken our cat Evie there once when our regular vet Union Vet Clinic was closed for the night.
We were on our way there when you called us and suggested we go to Rockville instead. Frankly, we were just the tiniest bit lost trying to find Friendship, so we were not only relieved to be in touch with the owners, and to find out her name is Penelope, but we were thankful that you gave us actual directions to an actual hospital. Whew!
We got to the hospital and they took her back and then y'all arrived and met Dawn and me, so you know the rest.
It all just happened to work out, I think. We were actually supposed to have our nieces for the weekend, but that all got canceled because of the snow. We probably wouldn't have been getting up and making the bed at that time if we'd had the nieces, so it was lucky that Dawn spotted Penelope when she did. And it just so happens that I went out after we made the bed, at the same time Penelope was in the back yard and the only place for her to run away was behind the garage, where she was trapped and I was able to nab her. I'm glad it all worked out, but it was just luck rather than any actual skill on our part.
I'm glad Penelope is doing better and we hope to see her soon.
More info about the search for Penelope on her blog at: http://findpenelope.blogspot.com/
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