Eli (Ellie)

My lost dog and some kind strangers & friends
By aschae, Mountain Top Natural Pets
Oct 14, 2008

My earlier post regarding the kinds of people you meet when your dog is lost, touched a nerve with me. Having experienced this first hand I found it the perfect opportunity to share….

Although I have yet to share the true story of Eli and her 4-day romp through the Catskill Mountains I can say that one of the most amazing things to me during that time was the people we met and the willingness they had to help us search.

Eli was lost near public access area to state land and a beautiful lake, Colgate Lake. There are not only usually hunters, but hikers, fisherman and weather permitting, flocks of people come here to swim & boat. Eli was lost in the fall, during hunting season so there were a lot less people around.

One day during our search my husband ran into a guy and his dog who just came to check out the lake and he ended up driving my husband around for hours and hours, into the night, searching, asking people if they had seen her & hanging signs.

I met some people in a field who asked if they could do a prayer circle which we literally just took hands right there as we met and asked for help to find our puppy (she was only 10 months at the time).

The store owner down the road from the lake was taking notes and info and asking people as they stopped in. In fact he is the one who told me where she had been spotted over and over again. We hung flyers and spoke to so many kind people who could see the desperation on our faces as the days went on. Friends drove up and in groups of 4-6 people we would hike off into the woods and walk miles and miles calling her name. They announced it on our local radio station and asked people to help search for our Eli! We had someone there searching and calling her name for 4 days, 24 hours a day, until we found her and brought her home. Sadly, she has never been the same dog since that weekend….

The best I do have to say never actually got to play out, but my sister and her then boyfriend, now husband, both worked for the County Sheriff’s Dept. As Eli was lost over the weekend my sister watched helplessly as there was just nothing more could do that we werent already doing. What I didn't know until later was that Monday morning they asked the county for approval to bring the Ulster County Search & Rescue dogs and handlers up to search for my Eli. By the time they got approval that afternoon I had already called to announce that after 4 long days, I had found her.

One other random thought about that day….. we pronounce Eli as “Ellie” but after we found her we realized a small problem… all these people who were kind strangers, found themselves yelling ELI all day to a dog who would probably not respond anyway to that unfamiliar name! Not that it probably would have done much good, but still something intersting to note if you own a dog who’s name might not be pronounced as it is “normally” spelled.

Source: http://mountaintopnaturalpets.info/2008/10/14/my-lost-dog-and-some-kind-strangers-friends/