Bernie, a shaggy white dog

You don't get to hear the rescuer's story nearly often enough. But Jill Posner tells a beautiful story on her blog. A lot of us would give anything to have this experience. Enjoy the story.

Bernie, looking happy he was caught!

Bernie's family - what a night!!!

The sweet tail of bernie tucker
October 14, 2007

I've been feeling down, teetering on that familiar ledge of uncertainty. Funny how fast that cliff edge can appear, just when I feel that I'm running on solid ground. Like turning a corner and oops, the ground has shifted beneath my feet. I've lost one of my pack recently, my human pack, and over the last few days, I sense I may be losing sight of where another one is headed. An unknowing, lack of resolution, something feels frayed and unfixable. It's not dissimilar to the sense of helplessness one feels when a beloved family pet disappears and you never find it. As the hours pass into days and months, the guilt grows, along with a firm belief that what you really want - is just to know. One way or another. Knowing is better than not.

I was heading down that dark path on Wednesday. The rain was sitting on my horizon and it was literally heading in to the East Bay. Rain may be necessary but it is not my friend. The phone rang. Steve, a man I knew, a little, from the time I helped him and his wife Ilene catch a small white terrified stray dog, was calling with a familiar plea ' Jill, I need some help with a dog'.

Steve had been feeding a shaggy white dog for a week or so, a dog who had been seen in the area for two months, but had just begun to show a pattern of behaviour. He (why did we think it was a he?) would emerge from the darkness of the railway tracks, the vast structures of the Chevron refinery shadowy in the background, flashing lights of the rail crossings casting a red glow over the scene, and the huge container train hissing and squealing slowly across the intersection at Cutting and Garrard.

Steve had begun to leave food behind a chain link fence surrounding a construction site, where the dog would spend part of the night. He had tried to coax the dog to come to him, but each time the animal had fled.

Wednesday night I drove to Point Richmond to see if I could help. Moments after I arrived, I saw him. Standing in the road near the construction site. There is something so acute about a dog's senses when he knows, just knows inside, that you are a predator and not a casual passer by. Before we had a chance to approach him, he put his head down, eyes studiously avoiding us while knowing exactly where we were, as if he were Bogart in a movie - moving swiftly, raising the collar on his raincoat and taking the first alley off Main Street, disappearing as if he had never been there. But in the dark I could hear the slightest tinkle as if a metal tag hung from a collar. The telltale wisp of smoke from Bogie's cigarette.

I smiled. I love these dogs. I told Steve we'd have to trap him, using a large humane trap, baited with food. He said 'this dog has the saddest face I've ever seen'. We would better understand why last night.

My friend Karen, an animal control officer with rescue red blood pumping through her veins, drove me and a trap to Steve and Ilene's house yesterday afternoon, and last night, just around dusk, Steve and I carried this large metal crate through the streets to the site, like two kids on a secret mission that you don't tell your parents about. We set it up and put the food at one end. The dog has to step on the metal plate in such a way to release the spring and the open gate shuts behind him.

We sat 50 yards away, on cold stone steps, watching and waiting. Finally, an hour later, there he was, a dim shape, carefully entering the building site and padding over to his feeding spot. And incredibly, moments later the dog was walking into the cage. I knew we would hear the harsh metallic sound of the gate slapping shut, but we heard nothing. Steve started panicking. But then I realised the dog was standing facing what would have been his exit, and he was motionless. The trap had worked. We tripped over each other rushing to the cage. The dog, barking furiously, was about as damn cute as they get. His anxious barking was accompanied by an involuntary wag of the tail.

As we approached the cage, I saw, under his shaggy, filthy, matted coat the metal tags I had heard a few nights before. Steve and I carried the heavy trap with the dog swaying inside, staggering like drunks, clambering over raised concrete walkways, and freshly dug trenches, half laughing half crying and cursing each time the trap bashed one of our legs. There's a moment when a stray but domesticated dog, so savvy on the streets, so eager to avoid capture, just surrenders. It's the most incredible thing - but at that moment, he knows that he is safe. It's why people like me, decry the cruelty of many animal shelters where this trust is betrayed each day.

At the house, we carried the trap into the garage and shut the door.

I slowly opened the gate and slipped my hand in to put a leash around his neck and guide him out. He moved slowly from the trap, a look of exhaustion on his face. His coat was muddy, thick mats hung from all over him, foxtails, burrs, and sticks dangling, and his fur hung in his eyes. His collar, once blue, was tangled in the matted mess. Slowly, as he flinched less and less at each touch, I found the clasp and released it. A red metal heart tag clinked against a rabies tag. They were both unreadable. Steve raced upstairs to wash the tags, and when we thought we could read the number, I made the call. The dog, called Bernie according to his tag, had stretched out on a blanket, not running now. It was 8.30pm.

A woman answered. I said 'I'm calling about your dog, are you missing a dog?' The voice on the other end sounded weary, as if after a dozen false starts, she no longer allowed herself the excitement of thinking her dog may have been found. Finally, she understood. I had her dog. I had the collar with the red heart tag, and her phone number. In San Leandro, nearly 30 miles away, Pat and Doug and their family couldn't believe what they were hearing. 'I love that dog with all my heart'. Pat said. I replied, 'well, he's here and ready to go home'. I felt she still didn't believe me.

At 9.30 pm, Bernie Tucker was reunited with his family, his explosive joy reverberating around the small entryway as he leapt at them, as they sobbed and shook with wonderment. I asked 'How did he get away from you?'. He jumped out of the car', they said, 'in Oakland, the window was just a little too low, and for the first few days we got dozens of calls, and then nothing'.

Here's the kicker. Bernie hadn't been running loose for two months. Bernie went missing in January. Ten months later, one evening in October - as he, with the face of a sad lost dog, began another night of evading the cruelty of strangers and depending on the kindness of strangers - in the space of two hours - Bernie Tucker went home.


Source: Jill Posner's Blog
http://jillposener.blogs.com/jill_rants_and_raves/2007/10/the-sweet-tail-.html