Ginger, beagle mix

Ginger's Story

Told by Nancy Despeaux

April 9, 2013

Ginger is a shy little girl, a tiny mix of what looks like beagle and dachshund. A Falls Church family adopted her in November 2012 from Homeless Animal Rescue Team in Fairfax VA. She had been called Trinity, and she’d had previous experience as a stray.

Doug holding Ginger for the first time in 2 weeks,
and Ginger with her girls the next morning

Ginger was a bit skittish with her family from the start, and took a little time to “keep it outside” (her business, that is!)  But they were patient with her, and she got there, and now she has the run of the house and always sleeps with someone – Mom and Dad or one of the girls. She came to make their family complete.

Then came Spring break 2013, when the family took a vacation to Florida. Ginger was left with trusted neighbors that Ginger knows well. In fact, the daughter lets her out and walks her every afternoon after school.

But Ginger has beagle in her, so when she found a compromise in the fence that the family didn’t know about, she nabbed her opportunity to run free. The girl called out after her, but that only seemed to encourage her to take off.

The family got to work right away, and let Ginger’s family know she had disappeared. Between the two families, the word was spread both electronically and with some fliers in short order.

For a week, sighting calls were coming in. Food was put down where sightings were called in. Each neighborhood with sightings was visited, and more fliers were hung.

Ginger’s family was back home from vacation by Friday, and Saturday, the last sighting came in before a dry period of eight days during which they learned nothing more. They continued to circulate the word, but it was hard to remain upbeat when that much time passes without hearing anything from anyone who has seen her.

The dad, Doug, was searching the internet, trying to find information or help or both, when he learned that there are people in the area that help individuals, families and rescue organization search for lost dogs. They do this as their way of giving back to their local communities – much like people we all know that spend countless hours volunteering for homeless animal rescue organizations. He reached out for information.

The next evening, I called him, and we spoke at length, He answered all my questions, and allowed me give him a run down to expose him to a few of the basics about lost dog search and recovery. He had done well collecting information in the almost 2 weeks since Ginger had taken off. But he was in need of a game plan and people that could offer some serious help. When we hung up, we left it that he would call me as soon as he got that next sighting call.

This was Friday evening, and the next sighting call came Sunday around 6:30pm. Sam, who lives one town over, in Annandale, had been seeing the shy beagle when she was walking her dogs, beginning on Thursday. When she mentioned to her husband that she had been seeing a loose dog in the neighborhood, he told her that he had (a) noticed a blur that might have been a dog hurrying across their back deck, and (b) seen a notice in the Annandale Patch of a lost dog. So Sam got Doug's number from that notice, and gave Doug a call and to explain what she had seen.

As promised, Doug called me – without even putting the phone down from the call. I got out the door as quickly as could, but Doug was not able to leave his house at the time. He had labored to prepare a surprise birthday party for his wife, Tess, and guests had begun to arrive. I told him to call me when things slowed down. Nadene was able to set aside whatever she was doing, and head out for the Annandale neighborhood within minutes of me reaching out to her. We met with Sam and got all of the details about when and where she had seen Ginger.

Nadene and I decided to take a slow walk down the unpaved road that Sam said Ginger had come up from to cross between two neighbors’ homes and across their street. As we neared the end of the road and began to get close to those neighbors’ backyards, I heard a strong rustling of leaves. We stopped and listened. I then decided to continue walking, and when I did, Ginger darted from one side of the road to the other. My eyesight isn’t as good as Nadene’s, and I didn’t even see her, but she did. Then Ginger howled, and we pivoted and walked slowly away.

I called Doug and left a message to let him know that we saw his dog. He called back in a few minutes, excited of course, and we made plans for him to head over to the area.

When he arrived, we had him walk slowly down that road. He had the treat jar to use to generate a familiar sound. Within a pretty sort time, he saw Ginger. But she didn’t come to him and eventually he came out, defeated. We made plans to go ahead and set up a humane trap.

Donna and Sonia arrived shortly afterward with a trap, a camera, and also some canned rabbit. After gaining permission from the homeowner, we placed the trap in Sam’s neighbor’s yard, right in the path that Ginger had been cutting. While we were obtaining permission, another neighbor who was outside his house with his cat told us he had just seen Ginger traverse between the two houses! She crossed the street and disappeared.

With the trap set up, we were all prepared to give it up to a couple of hours. It was after 10pm now. I had to jet up the street for my phone charger, and then Doug and I came back and took our position in view of the trap, across the street, in my car, while Donna and Nadene roved the larger neighborhood to see what they could see.

It turned out to be a bad idea assigning me with my horrendous vision, especially night vision, in the only position to watch the trap. (Well, Doug was in the car with me.) I don’t know if Ginger snuck up and in from the back while I was up the street picking up the charger, or if it was just that we weren’t smart enough to put a lantern or something at the trap so we could see if she approached from the back. I don’t know why we thought we could have seen her, as dark as it was.

So probably a good hour after Ginger DID go in the trap, unbeknown to any of us, we were ready to call it a night. We went to the trap to get it ready for the next day. Donna was ahead of everyone else, and she first said “Oh there’s an animal in the trap.”

My first thought was “well shoot, I hope it’s not a skunk”. Next Donna said, “Hey it’s the dog!” I felt like an idiot, but whatever – it was Ginger and she was in the trap!!

Needless to say, we were all VERY happy! Doug said it was like a dream for him. He didn’t hesitate a nanosecond to text the good news to his wife, Tess. She had told him she wanted to know every single detail whenever anything happened.

As we carried the trap over to Nadene’s van, with Ginger in it, someone commented that she was like Cleopatra. We closed Donna in the van, and she carefully removed Ginger from the trap and secured her with a couple of leashes.  We were able to get a photo of Doug holding her in the first minute, and he sent a photo the next day of Ginger back with her girls the next morning.

The next morning, when Doug went to wake up his sleepy head daughter that is always hard to get up, he told her that Ginger was downstairs. She said, "Dad, you're just saying that to get me out of bed." Funny! Later that day, Ginger got both the thumbs up and a microchip from the vet. And Doug shared that "she was all goofy after her bath yesterday, running all around."

If you have never helped a family reunite with their lost dog, try it! You’ll like it. That’s my idea of fun.