Fatty, English Staffy

Now let's get this straight . . . the dog got out of the yard, took up residence with a not too distant neighbor, basically, that I guess never walked her or made an attempt to microchip her or have her scanned for a microchip, but they did take her when they went on vacation, and lost her there. OK, just checking, I think that's what happened.


Missing dog recovered and returned... after eight years
Tuesday, 30 June 2009

An English staffy by the name of Fatty has been recovered after running away from home… eight years ago.
Fatty turned up at a pound in Yamba on the NSW far north coast, some 670 kilometres away from her home in Blacktown, Sydney.

Clarence Valley ranger Jon Hallam, who called owner John Jahshan after checking the dog’s microchip, says he had a hard time convincing him the story was true.

“He was absolutely gobsmacked,” Mr Hallam told the Blacktown Advocate.

“This is pretty much one out of the box. Eight years is a long time for the dog to go missing, and for the dog to not ever be checked in that eight years for the microchip… is pretty unusual as well.”

A two-year-old Fatty wandered off from Mr Jahshan’s backyard in 2001, before setting up residence at a nearby home.

But when that family was holidaying in Yamba, Fatty decided it was once again time to go walkabout.

Mr Jahshan, a truckdriver, said he had long ago abandoned hope of finding his pudgy companion.

“I went to the local vet at the time, looked at the shopping centres and whatever, went to the local pound for six, seven months; a couple of times a week [I] popped my head in to see if she was there.

“Then eight years later, she shows up.

“She looks great. She’s the same, (but) she’s put on more weight.”


Source: http://www.livenews.com.au/news/missing-dog-recovered-and-returned-after-eight-years/2009/6/30/211528

Luna, a beagle

Luna's Recovery
September 2009

Many of the volunteers in our lost dog recovery network look at Craigslist every day, and one day there was a post about a stray beagle hanging around a neighborhood in Alexandria (in our Northern Virginia area) for several weeks. Seems that a lot of the neighbors were feeding it and working together to try, unsuccessfully, to capture it. I guess they finally got the idea to post a Craigslist ad looking for someone trying to find their lost beagle.

Up to this point, we had only looked for people’s lost dogs, never the owners of stray dogs. But in that process, we’d learned about capturing at large dogs. So we decided to respond to the CL ad by offering help even though the dog wasn’t ours and we didn’t know who it belonged to.

So some volunteers were assigned to seek out people who had lost a beagle, such as checking shelter reports and online missing pet ads. Other volunteers began participating with the neighbors to monitor the feeding station. With our knowledge of trapping and camera use, and our connections to procure loaners of these items, we expanded the operation by bringing them in.

When the camera we installed captured a few shots of the dog, one volunteer was assigned to post another appeal on Craigslist to someone looking for a lost beagle, but this time with a couple of photos.

A woman responded pretty quickly by email, saying she had been staring and staring at the picture, and she was 99% sure it was her dog. She shared a picture of her Luna, and our many volunteers that studied the pictures of the two dogs were kind of split, with a few more agreeing it was possible that the two dogs were one and the same.

I saw numerous similar markings between the dogs in the two pictures -- a smudge on the face between the eye and the ear, a marking around the shoulder or above the elbow, the way the black faded to tan along the dog’s hind leg. On top of that, the woman mentioned that her dog is crazy about tennis balls, and we’d just finished reading a volunteer’s report of his overnight monitoring, during which he had tried interesting the dog with a tennis ball. While the dog didn't come to him, it was obvious that this dog is crazy about tennis balls. Sure, lots of dogs are, but it was a little bonus.

The stray beagle; photos captured by a motion sensored camera:

Luna; photo provided by her family:

But the Alexandria neighborhood where the dog had taken up residence is 22 miles from the woman’s Woodbridge home. To travel between the two towns by car, most people take Interstate 95 (which actually connects Maine and Florida, as well). But the simple fact is, Route 1 does run between Alexandria and Woodbridge (and I think also Maine and Florida). It’s a pretty busy route as well, but infinitely more possible than I-95 for a dog to use to travel between the two towns. This woman’s beagle could, without question, get from Woodbridge to Alexandria using Route 1.

So, since the dog was seen constantly at any and all hours of the day and night, we advised the woman that she could come at ANY time and most likely be able to see the dog, although the sooner the better, of course.

She came out with Luna’s favorite treats, and her own smelly t-shirt in case the dog didn’t show and she needed to leave her scent. She initially said she would bring the other dog at home that hasn't been eating much since Luna disappeared. Instead, she showed up without the companion dog, but with her two small kids and her disabled mother. Two of our volunteers were on hand. The family walked up and down a couple of the roads the beagle has been seen on, calling Luna’s name. (I don't think our volunteers wanted them to do that, but they did.)

As they were walking back up one road, the dog popped her little head out of the woods just around the corner from where they were. She stood in the ditch watching them, and our volunteers instructed them to get down on the ground. At this point, they were on the sidewalk, across the street from where the dog was watching them. As the dog slowly emerged from the woods, her tail was tucked and she was hesitant at first. When she was about half-way across the road, I guess they came into focus, or she finally recognized them for sure, and she tore the rest of the way across the street to them! The woman scooped her up, and Luna was licking the kids like crazy! She was just so excited and happy!
The woman told our volunteer that when she first posted on Craigslist after Luna went missing (thanks to the gate having been left open and no one knowing it when they let her out in the yard), she received two sightings via email. She followed up on them, and they both placed a dog matching Luna's description along Route 1, part way between Woodbridge and Alexandria.

So this was a new experience for our group -- helping a stray dog find its family as opposed to helping a family find its lost dog! As it happened, Luna's mom was the most ungrateful person I've probably ever met in all my life, which didn't add to the experience. But if I forget about that, it's a nice memory.

The blog maintained by the volunteers for the stray dog is at http://findtaylor.blogspot.com

Ekko, a german short haired pointer

Ekko's Story
September 1, 2009

Ekko's life could have been much worse when he was rescued and rehomed; he'd always had a home, and lived with a litter mate, but they lived outside. When medical issues caused that family to have to give up their two dogs, Ekko was adoped by a Northern Virginia family that included a mom & a dad, and for a short while after the adoption, a college age son who was due to head back to school about five weeks after he came to live with them.

2+ weeks in to his new life, Ekko got spooked by a loud noise outside the family home, and he managed to break free from confinement. He took off and was seen VERY few times over the next four weeks.

But there was no shortage of volunteers working to find him. A tracking dog team that had trained specifically to track missing pets came out several times to trail Ekko's scent. The tracks showed that Ekko was staying in the general area, though in a large loop that took quite a bit of work to cover in fliers.

At one point, because there had been no sightings for so long, volunteers tried to scare up sightings by staking out four points along the track for five hours straight, two nights in a row. Nothing. Talk about grim.

Meanwhile, on the morning that marked the 29th day that Ekko was lost, a man living about 5 blocks away from Ekko's home was leaving for work when he saw a dog in the bushes in his back yard. He went into the house and told his 7 year old daughter that there was a dog in the bushes in the back yard. (The mother was in the shower.) And then he left to go to work.

The girl went out and saw the dog. Smart enough to know that the dog's rescue couldn't wait for her mother to get out of the shower, this amazing young girl took immediate action. She reasoned that since they didn't have a dog, there was no leash she could pick up to go and contain the dog. But the next door neighbor had a dog, so she figured they should have a leash. So this angel called the next door neighbor and asked if she could borrow a leash.

Of course the neighbor said, "Sure, but what do you need it for and where's your mother?"

"She's in the shower, and there's a dog in my back yard," the young girl said.

The neighbor got a leash and some ham, and then made a detour between her house and the girl's house next door to go to the telephone pole and grab a tab with the phone number off the lost dog flier that had been posted for weeks. When she reached the area where the dog was hiding in the bushes, she knew immediately that it was the elusive Ekko.

Apparently, it took a little effort to leash him, but she did. And not two or three minutes later, some workmen showed up to get started on a construction project for the day, at the girl's house or the neighbor's house. So as it happened, there was really only a very small window in which to have safely contained this dog. Had the girl waited for her mother to get out of the shower . . . well, I prefer not to think about it.

Ekko still had his collar and tags, and the neighbor called his family. As she'd been instructed to do, Ekko's mom immediately called a volunteer to meet them at the house. The volunteer arrived first, and whisked Ekko off to the vet, where they met Ekko's mom & dad. He was very docile, and very good, but he didn't show much emotion with the girl, the neighbor or the volunteer. But he went crazy when he saw his mom & dad! He kind of jumped on Maureen -- he put his paws up on her, which wouldn't have made me wince if he didn't have a broken leg!

Ekko was doing both better AND worse than he could have -- he was flea & parasite free, thankfully, and not dirty or smelly. But he was dehydrated and emaciated and he had a front leg broken in two places -- probably by a car within the first few days that he was on the run.

Ekko's recovery was yesterday, and here's the post-surgery report:

After 3 hours of surgery, Ekko is doing fine. Yes, it took longer than expected. The objective of the surgery was to install a bone plate (8 pin) under the skin. The doctor at Suburban Animal Hospital (Arlington) said that is took longer than expected because there was some dead bone in the center of the leg. He estimates that Ekko broke the leg on or soon after he got away on 8/03/09. He may have been hit by a car and hid while he tried to heal. That is probably why it was difficult to locate him. (It is amazing that he tracked as far as he did with a broken leg.) Unfortunately, the bone started healing, over those four weeks, in the wrong way creating a deformity, or almost an extra joint in the bone. It was not a strong mend. Doing nothing and putting on a cast would have handicapped Ekko for the rest of his life. The doctor removed about one inch of the bad bone and replaced with a synthetic bone that is better than actual bone. Also a 12-pin bone plate was installed because of the loss of the extra bone. Ekko is resting comfortably with ice on his leg with the help of pain killers at the hospital. He might be home on Monday. The doctor expects him to fully recover in 8-12 weeks.

Another lost dog safely recovered. And we helped!!!

More info at: http//findekko.blogspot.com

Scobby, a Black Lab

The Case of the Missing Dog and the Kitty Held Hostage
by PetSugar

Thu, 07/03/2008 - 7:00am

There must be something in the water down there in Florida to cause a woman to hold a cat as ransom! This story is a bit tricky, so stay with me here:

Linda Urioste's black lab Scobby went missing several weeks ago, but instead of searching for him right away, she assumed he was stolen and gone for good. In the meantime, Scobby had turned up at the animal shelter and was adopted by Jutta Hollar and her husband after being unclaimed for weeks.

Eventually Urioste did check the animal shelter, and the couple learned that the rightful owner was looking for the pup.

Upon meeting Urioste, the Hollars decided not to give back Scobby (now renamed Buddy), since Urioste was "extremely rude and threatened to sue."

Here's where things get interesting: Mizy, the Hollar's cat went missing a few days after meeting Urioste, and they received a message from her stating she had Mizy, and wouldn't give her back until they returned Scobby!

After confessing, police arrested Linda Urioste for holding lil Mizy ransom in exchange for the dog. Charges included theft and extortion! Yeesh! What's the lesson here? Always look for your missing dogs, and don't use other pets as ransom!

Source: http://www.petsugar.com/1754465