by Meghan Reed
Thursday, September 2, 2010
On June 12th, a lovely Saturday morning, we were heading out the door to go to the farmer's market. My mom was in town visiting and she loves to go our farmer's market. We decided that we would take Whitney along because it would be good for her social skills development.
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| Whitney |
Matt had Whitney on her leash and was heading down to the car when her leash got tangled up and he tripped and dropped the leash. Little miss Whitney was startled and took off running. Matt chased her for a little while but she was just too fast. We wandered around the neighborhood all morning trying find her with no luck. Eventually we gave up and decided we would just have to wait for her to come home on her own. It seemed like the longest day ever.
Finally, around 9:30pm we were watching a movie and I heard a jingle on the front porch. It was Whitney, she came back but when we opened the front door to get her she took off running again. This was the last time we saw her.
I was determined to find poor little Whitney and bring her home. I put hundreds of fliers all over our neighborhood, on everyone's cars and all of the utility poles. I posted her on craigslist in the pets and the lost and found sections. I even paid to have a pet amber alert sent. This service sent a notice to all of the local vets, animal shelters, animal control, law enforcement, and Pet Stores within a 50 mile radius.
I continued to hang fliers an check craigslist for weeks with no luck. Eventually I stopped wandering all over the place looking for her, I just didn't have the time. I did however continue to post her on craigslist in both the pets and lost and found sections once a week. This went on for two months.
On August 8th, while I was making dinner, my phone rang, it was an unknown number and Matt answered. It was the daughter of a woman who had just moved into a new townhouse. She said her mom had been telling her about this little dog that comes out of the woods every evening around 6pm and scrounges around the nearby construction site. So the daughter went on craigslist to see if she could find anything about a lost dog. She found our ad and showed the picture to her mom who said it did look like the dog she sees every night; it just looked a little smaller in real life.
She gave us the address, it was only about 2 miles from our house, so we dropped everything to go check it out. We wandered into the construction site and looked around a bit, and then I saw something in the dirt. It was Whitney's collar, I called her name and sure enough she popped up out of some bushes and took off running. We weren't able to catch her that night, but I kept going back every night, still unable to catch her. At least I was able to see that she was okay and leave her some food. I also found out that some of the construction workers had been feeding her for weeks, so she had been living there for a while.
I tried everything I could think of to catch her. I set her crate up with a Wendy's cheeseburger in it; we tried a Havaheart trap, and even brought Arnie over to see if he could get her to come to us. After a week of spending my evenings at a dirty construction site, I was running out of ideas, so I turned to craigslist for help. I posted on there that we had found her but were unable to catch her and I got several responses recommending a pet trapper.
On August 12th, exactly 2 months after she ran away, I contacted Pure Gold Pet Trackers. They have this really snazzy trap that doesn't look like a trap. You can see how it works below.
We set the trap up that night around 9:30pm with a rotisserie chicken in it then we sat in the car and waited. We had night vision goggles so we could see what Whitney was up to in the dark. She wandered around for a while, kept sniffing around the corner where the chicken was. She wasn't too sure about the fence and the entrance to the trap, but she really wanted that chicken. At about 11:30pm she went for it and the door shut behind her. We caught her! I got her in the car and let her finish the chicken while we packed up the trap.
I took her home and cleaned her up bit, gave her some treats and put her to bed in her crate. The next day she got a real bath and went to the vet. She was given a clean bill of health except for a few ticks.
Today, she is fully recovered and starting to act more and more like a normal dog every day.
We would like to thank Sam, Nancy, and Nadene for all of their help with bringing Whitney home.
Source (& many more pics): http://www.thekraftywife.com/2010/09/whitneys-story-part-2.html
Whitney's background story is at http://www.thekraftywife.com/2010/08/whitneys-story-part-1.html
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