Gigi, sheltie

Gigi's Story
Washington DC
March 2010

Gigi, a beautiful Shetland sheepdog who had been a wandering stray in the middle of Virginia when rescue by Northern Virginia Sheltie Rescue, had been in her new home only three days when she got out of the gated kitchen while Nancy went to collect the mail. Nancy and Jim immediately launched a huge campaign to find and recover Gigi, and gained a large number of supporters and volunteers over the next several weeks while she was missing.

Sightings being called in showed that she was spending time some blocks away from home, in the area behind the Sweden ambassadorial residence. So Nancy called there to see if they could gain access to their grounds. The Swedish Embassy provided the personal cell number of the ambassador’s wife, Eva Hafstrom, who went on to play a critically important role over the next week while Gigi spent time behind her home.

One of Gigi's sighters is friends with the owner of the home that backs to the rear of the Swedish embassy grounds, a doctor named Lee Monsein. As it turned out, Lee is passionate about dogs – certainly about his own boxer, Rave – and he’s also a hi-tech enthusiast. He agreed to train his “Ravecam” on the humane trap that was now set up on the back of the Swedish embassy property, for the time being, rather than use it to keep an eye on Rave when he wasn’t home.

Over the next several days, Eva at one end of the property and Lee at the other were able to establish Gigi's schedule. So in a real sense, Gigi was no longer "lost". Nancy and Jim knew just where she was. Eva and her own dog Nalle would see Gigi nearer the residence in the morning hours from 5am to 7:30 AM, and Lee reliably saw her from around 10PM to 3AM. Eva also would see Gigi in the evenings, and Jim also saw her in the mornings.

The humane trap borrowed from Sam Connolly of Pure Gold Pet Trackers was catching a fat orange tabby and a fat raccoon, and the mangy fox who lives on the grounds was following Gigi around, as reported by both Lee at one end of the parcel of land, and Eva at the other.

Lee came up with the idea to use his dog run, which had a gate that opened onto the residence grounds, as an enclosure trap. Unlike a small trap, the roofless run might well prove less scary to little Gigi. On his own initiative and with his own money, Lee purchased a motion detector and aimed it at the gate, which was left partially open. 100 lb rope was tied to two points on the gate which was physically close to a window in Lee’s home. Lee then ran the lines through the window from which he had removed the screen, and he closed the window. When the motion sensor detected movement, it rang an alarm in the house, so Lee could come and pull the gate shut.

The bait used included fried chicken, raw ground beef, and a t-shirt donated by Gigi's foster mom, Nancy Tisdale, with her scent on it. At 1 AM the next morning, the alarm rang. Lee observed Gigi enter the run. He then pulled the rope to close the gate. But the food hadn't placed the food far enough from the gate, and Gigi turned quickly and slipped out.

The team worried that she would remember, and possibly avoid the run at all costs. Over the next 48 hours, she did approach both trap and run numerous times, but never entered either one. She was clearly hungry. At 3:30 AM on Friday, as Gigi was approaching the trap, it blew over, despite being chained to a tree. This was observed by Lee, who was by now getting very little sleep.

That day, Gigi's foster mom Nancy remembered how much Gigi loved playing with a kickball, and suggested that the one that Jim had brought home the very evening Gigi escaped be taken to the area around the humane trap. Jim was dubious, but he dropped off the kickball when he took the fresh chicken to the trap on Friday.

Later that day, Lee observed Gigi playing by herself with the kickball – as if she were in a soccer match of one. She would push it forward with her head or bat it with her paws, chasing after it. So at the suggestion of Sam the pet tracker, Lee placed the kickball along with the food in his dog run, with the motion sensor detector aimed at the gate, and the ropes running through the windows. The detector sounded an alarm in Lee's house if anything approached. So Since he had placed a second motion detector aimed at the humane trap, and since Gigi was very active, approaching both the trap and dog run numerous times, Lee got little sleep as the alarm in his house repeatedly woke him up.

Finally, at 3:30 AM, Gigi, entered the dog run - with the kickball in it. Lee slammed the door shut at which time Gigi went ballistic. She started to leap the height of the six-foot fence. Lee was afraid she might bounce over the fence and once again take flight. Quickly entering the run and picking Gigi up, Lee took Gigi into his downstairs den and called Nancy and Jim at 3:47 AM. Ten minutes later, they walked into the basement room where Gigi, cool as a cucumber, was being petted by Lee.

None of the foods that the many Gigi fans suggested (KFC, Popeye's, lamb tripe, roast beef) did the trick. It was a rubber ball and the promise of play!

What makes this so extraordinary is that Jim works for the national profit which advocates for the importance of play in children's lives -- KaBOOM! In fact, it was a KaBOOM! kickball that lured her in. We know that play makes children healthier, physically and emotionally. And in Gigi's case, play literally helped to save her life.

More information: http://gigishope.blogspot.com