Baby Lady, Schnauzer

Dog Missing for 11 Months Reunited with Owner
Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011

GLENDALE - When your dog has been missing for months, you expect the worst. A Glendale woman thought she would never see her pet again, but one little piece of plastic made all the difference.

Antoinette McKinney can not believe what she sees. Her missing miniature schnauzer is home.

“It was kind of an absolute surprise.”

Baby Lady disappeared last Christmas Eve near 43rd Ave and Bell.

“I drove my family crazy for about two to three weeks, kept coming out and walking, calling. She just disappeared.”

Antoinette even posted flyers with the dog’s picture up and down the streets of around her neighborhood.

“People told me the coyotes got her, someone took her.”

Antoinette was so sure that she would never see her beloved dog that she got another one names Patches.

She didn't expect to have two schnauzers sharing her house, but she got a call Monday night. Luckily, Patches and Baby Lady are getting along.

Turns out someone turned Baby Lady in to the Arizona Humane Society. It’s a good thing the dog had a microchip or Antoinette would never have recognized her.



“It's miraculous and they did the right thing, they microchipped their dog and that makes all the difference in the world,” says Bretta Nelson from the AZ Humane Society.

Source: http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/pets/dog-missing-for-11-months-reunited-with-owner-11-16-2011


Another version of the story is at: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/lifestyle/pets/missing-dog-reunited-with-owner-after-10-months-of-being-lost

Missing dog reunited with owner after 10 months of being lost
By: Bryan Pahia
Posted: 11/15/2011

GLENDALE, AZ - What was supposed to be a joyous Christmas Eve last year left one Valley woman without her beloved dog for over 10 months.

According to the Arizona Humane Society, on December 24, 2010, Glendale resident Antionette McKinney and her family came home from a party and she was greeted at the car by her dog, Baby Lady. As Antionette carried presents into the house, she figured Lady was behind her, as she always is.

Once everything had settled, Antionette had realized that Lady was nowhere to be found.

Antionette was frantic and spent the next several weeks going door to door, looking for Lady. The weeks led to months, and Antionette thought she had lost Lady for good.

This month, a good Samaritan brought in a scraggly schnauzer to the Arizona Humane Society. Workers eventually realized that the dog had a microchip.

At the same time, Antionette had just returned home and checked her messages. The Arizona Humane Society had called, saying that they had Lady.

Antionette was in shock. After 10 and a half months, she had just been notified that her best friend had been found. Antionette quickly headed to the Arizona Humane Society and was reunited with her beloved dog.

Making her day even better? Antionette was not only reunited with Lady, she also welcomed a grandson to her family.

Bill, viszla/lab mix

Catching Bill
Kat Albrecht, Pet Detective Blog
April 16th, 2011

Sometimes, recovering a lost dog is as easy as driving down to the local shelter or posting a LOST DOG Ad on Craig’s List. However, when the dog has a skittish temperament and is so panicked that he is running from everyone, including his own family, things change. Suddenly it’s not so easy. In fact, it can be downright hopeless. Many of skittish dogs that escape from their families are simply never recovered because theses guardian typically don’t have the knowledge, the proper equipment, or the support they need. The story of Bill is case where a family (a foster family at that) refused to give up, even when the recovery took them close to one year!

Bill Relaxed at Home

Bill, a Vizsla / Labrador mix, somehow ended up in an animal shelter in early 2010. He was rescued and ended up in the hands of Don and Marianne Blackwell from Ft. Collins, Colorado. The Blackwell’s fostered Bill for six weeks for the rescue group they volunteered for. Here’s how Marianne described life with Bill (before his escape):

“Bill quickly became part of our family and was a real sweetheart. My husband Don walks/runs our 3 Vizslas in the back field and was eventually able to take Bill without a leash; Bill stayed near the rest of the pack and to Don.”

Well, as fate would have it, an adoptive family was found for Bill. However, there was a problem. Bill hated crates. But the rescue group felt that Bill needed to be crate trained for his new family. So Bill was moved out of the Blackwell’s house and in with another volunteer who knew how to crate train dogs. As Marianne told me, “With a great deal of sadness, we let them take Bill from our home. We were miserable.” Marianne and Don were miserable because they loved Bill and knew how much this gentle dog hate, hate, HATED crates! When Marianne called the fellow rescuer a few weeks later to find out how Bill was doing, she learned the crushing news. Bill had jumped a fence and ran away from the other rescuers house a week before. Marianne and Don were heartsick! They immediately launched an extensive search (shelter checks, posters, advertisements, etc.) for Bill. They kept this up not just for weeks, but for MONTHS. However, eventually all leads and sightings diminished down to nothing. It seemed that Bill had vanished from the face of earth.

Then, eight months later (in January 2011), Bill was sighted by the same rescuer he’d escaped from. He was seen running near a drainage ditch not far from his home. Marianne and Don jumped back into recovery mode. They posted more flyers, talked to people in the area of the sighting, and ultimately after great gumshoe work they discovered where Bill was living. He had found an abandoned house with a hole big enough for a Viszla mix to crawl into. Don and Marianne began to put food out there and would catch glimpses of Bill as he took off in terror from anyone who tried to approach him.

That was when I came into the picture. Marianne surfed the Internet for information on how to catch a hard-to-catch dog. She found Missing Pet Partnership’s web site and was encouraged by the story of how MPP volunteers caught Sophie, a skittish Bernese Mountain Dog after a 7 week effort. Marianne emailed me on February 27, 2011, explained Bill’s story, and ended her email like this:

“What can we do next? We have been looking for our dog for almost 9 months and will not ever give up on him, but we don’t know what to do to bring him in. He is obviously a survivor and eats garbage and whatever else people have set out for him. There’s flowing water nearby. He looks fairly healthy, but is very people-adverse. We need to bring him home. Can you help with any ideas or game plans?”

I immediately advised Marianne to purchase a digital wildlife camera in order to monitor Bill’s activity, especially if they planned to use a large dog humane trap (which I also recommended they get). I then referred her to Jim Branson, Missing Pet Partnership’s secret weapon for recovering hard-to-catch dogs. Jim consulted with Marianne (then and over the next several weeks), sharing MPP’s experience in using humane traps, wildlife cameras, and the very rare cases where traditional trapping did not work and other techniques were needed.

Marianne and Don bought a wildlife camera and set it up by the food dish. Immediately, they began to monitor Bill’s activity by looking at the pictures that were snapped of him every day.

Bill Sitting By His Hidey-Hole-Home

They contacted the Larimer County Humane Society Animal Control who set up a humane dog trap. However, Bill would not go into the trap. So they put out the largest size dog trap available but just like Sophie who was just too afraid to enter a dog trap, Bill would not go into a dog trap.

Bill Too Afraid To Enter Humane Trap

This is the value of using wildlife cameras in capturing skittish dogs and cats. Wildlife cameras provide useful information. They confirm that the animal is still in the area. And like the case of the skittish dog Vivian Irene and Buddy the skittish cat, wildlife cameras can inform rescuers that yeah, a baited humane trap IS attracting the animal you’re trying to catch but the trap ISN’T going to catch them!

And that’s what happened with Bill. Don and Marianne spent the next several weeks trying to catch Bill. They put a sedative in his food, thinking it would make him calm enough to enter the trap. That didn’t work. Ultimately, after 8 weeks of effort they decided they needed a new plan. They contacted the Larimer County Humane Society Animal Control again and they offered to dart and capture Bill.

Bill...captured at last!

It took a team of three animal control officers plus Don and Marianne who knew where Bill would run (which he did) after he was darted. Ultimately after a dart, a foot chase, another dart, another foot chase, and a THIRD dart (because darted dogs will run!) they were able to corner the groggy Bill and capture him with catch poles. Bill was immediately transported to the emergency vet where he was given a thorough check up and a bath. He was de-wormed, given flea and tick treatment, and had blood work done for heart worm and internal organ testing. Amazingly, Bill was pretty healthy.

Marianne, Don, and Bill (at the emergency vet)

So, do you want to know how the story ends? If you’re like me, you’re a sucker for a happy ending. Remember that Marianne and Don were not even Bill’s owners. They were simply a foster family who fell in love with Bill and felt compassion for him to the point where they refused to give up on him. Don wrote a story about Bill’s recovery that Marianne e-mailed to me (and gave me permission to share). So I will let Don tell you, in his own words, what ultimately happened to Bill after he left the emergency vet:

“Finally, after 11 months away out in the cold and by himself, Bill was home. When Bill woke up to three dogs and his former foster family, he decided life was good. It was just like he was never away. Bill decided he doesn’t like being alone. Bill follows Don everywhere he goes. Bill and Don decided that was OK with both of them. Also, everyone decided that this was never really Bill’s foster home. This was Bill’s forever home.”

Source: http://katalbrecht.com/blog/?p=978

Willis, clumber spaniel

A lost dog is finally home for Christmas:

Coincidence, luck or something more?

By Courtland Milloy, Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, December 24, 2010; 6:21 PM 



Willis, a 7-year-old Clumber spaniel, strayed from his home in Portsmouth, Va., just before Christmas last year and wound up in an animal shelter in Maryland. He's now back with his owner, Karen Martin, who now lives in Williamsburg.

Willis, the long-lost Clumber spaniel, was in just about the worst pickle a dog could be in: Lost, hundreds of miles from home, he had been put on the equivalent of death row at the Tri County Animal Shelter in Hughesville, Md.

Picked up by animal control officers in Charles County on Nov. 20, he was taken to the shelter, where unclaimed strays are euthanized. Shelter workers scanned Willis for an identification chip, but the one that had been implanted beneath his skin was not detected. So, a photograph of the haggard 7-year-old was put on the facility's "at-risk" list, which means a lethal injection could be imminent.

What happened next to Willis might strike some as just a series of improbable coincidences, or merely another example of the power of the Internet. Karen Martin thinks it was much more.

"The perfect timing, having so many people in the right place at the right time, people willing to go all out to help a stranger and her dog, is beyond comprehension," Martin told me. "It's nothing short of a miracle, as far as I'm concerned."

Willis was her dog. Four days before Christmas last year, the pooch went missing from her back yard in Portsmouth, Va., turning her holiday into a nightmare. She spent nearly a year intensely searching - posting "lost dog" fliers throughout the neighborhood, visiting shelters, contacting animal rescue organizations. She had all but given up hope of seeing him again.

Willis, meanwhile, had gotten himself to the Washington area. No one knows how or when he arrived. But once he was picked up and taken to the shelter, he quickly made a friend. Amy Howard, the animal rescue coordinator at Tri County, had placed Willis on the at-risk list - not to hasten his destruction but in hopes that someone might see his photo and be willing to adopt him and provide him with what she called a "forever home."

Otherwise, she might end up being the one called on to administer the lethal injection.

"There are certain animals that I grow fond of that, sadly, I can't take home," Howard said.

The shelter's at-risk list includes a photograph of each dog in danger of being euthanized and as much background information as the shelter staff can muster. The list is e-mailed to animal rescue groups and other dog lovers.

Terry Walker, an office manager for a veterinary hospital in Calvert County, was on her computer at home when the list arrived. She said one dog in particular stood out - a sad- looking canine that only someone with an extensive knowledge of dogs would recognize as being of the rare Clumber spaniel breed.

Walker just happened to be one who knew.

"Where most people like to read novels, I read books about dogs," she said. "You just don't see Clumber spaniels in animal shelters."

After a quick Internet search, Walker found an organization called Clumber Spaniel Rescue of America, clicked on the mid-Atlantic region and forwarded the dog's photograph to the three contacts whose names were listed.

On two of those e-mails, the photo attachments Walker sent could not be opened. The third e-mail wound up in the spam folder of Sally Day, who was at home in Washington Crossing, Pa.

Day had been up late on her computer killing out potentially harmful e-mails. Usually, she just deletes them without looking. But this time she didn't.

"A voice said, 'Open it,' and the hair stood up on the back of my neck," Day recalled. "The e-mail was from a stranger, and there was a photograph attached. I instantly thought I recognized the dog. I said, 'Oh, my God, that's Karen's boy.' "

Turns out, Karen Martin and Sally Day are old friends.

Day, who also owns a Clumber spaniel, said she called "100 times" until Martin, who had been asleep, picked up the phone. Day e-mailed her the photo, which was fuzzy, and the two analyzed it late into the night.

Martin had gotten Willis as a pup, trained him to be a show dog and spent nearly three years with him wowing judges at kennel club competitions throughout the country. But there was nothing regal about that dog on death row. Except the eyes. Martin would know those eyes anywhere.

Day and Martin frantically called the shelter, leaving messages for Howard, trying to get through before Willis was euthanized. Howard got the messages in plenty of time. Willis, the long-lost Clumber spaniel, was about to go home.

Martin wanted Willis out of the shelter immediately, so Day telephoned Sue Carr at the national Clumber rescue organization for help. Carr called Judy and Gary Wollin, members of a cocker spaniel rescue group in Maryland, and they agreed to pick up the dog.

The Wollins bathed and fed Willis. And when Martin arrived at their home later that night, her eyes welled.

Somehow, Willis had journeyed more than 200 miles from home, and the time away had taken its toll. He had a fever, an injured eye, a respiratory infection and a skin allergy that made him itch so badly that he had scratched and chewed off patches of hair from his shoulders to his tail.

After several visits to a veterinarian, however, he's on the mend.

Martin, who now lives in Williamsburg, says she expects this Christmas to be as joyful as last year's was sad.

"I once heard Katie Couric refer to blessings as a 'God wink,'" Martin said. "That's how I feel, like God winked at me."

Amazingly, Willis is still winking, too.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/24/AR2010122401827.html
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Also see this version of the story:
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/12/dogs-return-after-year-lost-gives-owner-happy-tale