Abner, black lab

Looking for Abner
Doug Moe, Wisconsin State Journal
December 15, 2013

Last weekend, mid-morning Saturday, Mary Carbine stood at the top of the driveway of a farm home in White Lake, up north in Langlade County. At the end of the driveway, 50 yards away, near some woods, Carbine saw something she had not seen in nine weeks — her black Labrador mix dog.

“Oh, God,” Carbine whispered. “There’s Abner.”

The farm owner, Gene Holbrook, working outside, had seen him first and gone in to alert Carbine. By then she knew enough not to run. After two months, Carbine had the missing dog protocol down cold. She inched along the driveway, but after a moment, Abner turned and ran into the woods.

The rule was, she couldn’t chase him. Carbine took some treats and a blanket that held Abner’s scent to the spot where he had stood. She set them down and then sat on the blanket, staying 15 minutes, longer than was wise in the cold. Then she went back inside.

Late that afternoon, from a window, Carbine saw Abner again. This time, walking outside, she couldn’t help herself. She called softly to her dog, words she’d used hundreds of times. “Come on, Abner.”

He paused momentarily, then turned, and ran again to the woods.

The next day, driving back to Madison alone, Carbine, who had been so strong, was fighting despair, thinking “This is never going to end.”

It began on a weekend in early October, a happy annual gathering of eight friends at a cabin near Three Lakes, some 250 miles north of Madison.

Carbine, 49, has been executive director of Madison’s Central Business Improvement District for eight years. She got Abner, a stray, in 2008 from a rescue organization called Furry Bottoms. Abner looked like a bruiser but was really a cupcake, Carbine decided. He liked to cuddle. And he was “a thinker,” a teacher at obedience school had said.

Abner had accompanied Carbine to the Three Lakes cabin several times, where the group of friends meet each fall for two days of hiking, canoeing and eating. Several bring their dogs. This year, they arrived on Oct. 4.

The next morning, the group was out on the road for a walk, dogs included. Something got the dogs’ attention, and they scampered into the woods. The people kept walking, slowly, calling for their dogs. After five or 10 minutes, all of the dogs returned, except Abner.

The group continued calling Abner’s name. He had run off before, Carbine said, and always came back. Minutes became an hour, and more, and then it began to thunder and lightning, which always frightened Abner.

“We began to get seriously concerned,” Carbine said. They split into teams, on foot and in cars. “Our weekend turned into a search party,” Carbine said. They put things with familiar scents both outside the cabin and at the spot where Abner disappeared. Nothing. The next day, heartsick, Carbine drove into Three Lakes, looking for the Internet, and advice.

She found both at the website of a remarkable volunteer organization called Lost Dogs of Wisconsin. They instructed Carbine on what best to do and helped create and circulate flyers. (Yelling and chasing your dog is not recommended; a dog at large can go into a survival mode that will view most any approach as a threat, causing it to run away.)

Sunday night, a volunteer, Dave Woods, phoned Carbine.

“We’re going to bring Abner home,” said Woods, who would be in frequent touch over the next nine weeks.

Carbine stayed up north that Monday, circulating more flyers, and went back the following weekend, by which time she had begun to receive calls of sightings of Abner. He appeared to have headed south, maybe four miles that first day, which was unfortunate. The north wind would have kept him from getting a scent back to the cabin.

Carbine returned to the area on weekends through October, and into November. She took out ads in small papers and the calls increased, although it was never easy to know if a sighting of Abner was really him. Carbine spent two futile days in Tomahawk. The best information seemed to indicate Abner was still heading south, and ads and flyers in and around Crandon, and then Antigo, brought more sightings. “But I was always like a day behind him,” Carbine said.

Finally, earlier this month, Carbine got a call from a couple in White Lake, Gene and Lorie Holbrook. Their motion-activated camera captured an image of Abner. He was visiting their shed for shelter. It was 65 miles from where he disappeared.

Carbine spent last weekend in White Lake, saw Abner twice at the Holbrook farm, but could not retrieve him. She drove home Sunday, still heartsick. That night in Madison, the phone rang. Abner had followed the couple’s dog inside. He was on their couch.

Monday, Carbine drove north one last time. Abner was overjoyed to see her. He was no longer in survival mode. Back in Madison, the vet would say he was in good shape. He grew a thick coat, ate the food left outside by kind people who had read Carbine’s flyers and ads. Abner had gained eight pounds.

Carbine called Dave Woods, the Lost Dogs volunteer in Wausau, to tell him he was right. They’d brought Abner home.

Source: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/columnists/doug-moe/doug-moe-looking-for-abner/article_d302a9c3-5fc5-5455-8a1b-1e0e11f75ec7.html