If you own a dog, you can imagine the horror. A friend looks after her for a few minutes, and she breaks away. You know she was looking for you, and you know that your puppy panicked when she couldn’t find you.
Runaway
It happened here in Pataskala Friday, at the local Laundromat. The dog, a seven month old puppy, slipped out of her collar and ran out the door to find her “Mom.” This puppy was more than just a cute, happy friend, she had an innate way of knowing how to ease the severe anxieties “Mom” had from the recent tragedies in her life. The puppy’s name was Valen, short for Valentine, and she could ease the shaking of PTSD, and wake “Mom” from her night terrors.
But she was gone, running across a four lane highway at rush hour, and off into a local woods.
There are a lot of bad things you can say about Facebook. From coldly profiting from personal information, to underhandedly influencing our election, Facebook has taken an enormous and often negative role in American life. But at its best, it sometimes fulfills the “dream” that Mark Zuckerberg said he thought his invention could be. Sometimes, it can unite a community.
So how to find a lost, scared and lonely dog running in a strange woods? Here in Pataskala, those woods are surrounded by housing developments. If somehow you could let folks living around them know what’s going on, then they could maybe help find Valen.
And this is where Facebook shines. Within hours, the “Pataskala Page,” best known for complaints about local taxes and student drivers, had Valen’s picture and possible location posted. Along with posters on local utility poles, Facebook reached thousands surrounding the area.
We’re on a Search
It reached Jennifer, my wife. Jenn has always had a soft spot for lost dogs, the two that are sleeping under my feet right now are rescues from the local shelter. One was days away from euthanization, the other rejected by two other homes. They both found a home and safety here, with us.
So Jenn got in the car, and started trolling the suburban streets around the woods. Like any small community, people notice strange cars going back and forth in their neighborhoods, and come out to see what’s going on. Jenn had lots of conversations with folks on a sunny Saturday afternoon, letting them know about Valen, and giving them contact numbers if she was spotted.
The “pros” were involved too. “Pet FBI” listed Valen on their website, a group that helps spread the word about lost pets in Ohio and the Midwest. And there are actually groups that take on “lost dogs,” they make posters, put out traps, and have amazing success in finding dogs lost for weeks. “Lost Pet Recovery” got involved here in Pataskala too.
But Saturday ended in frustration. There was one report of a dog running along the edge of the wood, and a second of two dogs going into the woods along a deer path. But Valen was still out in the woods, and “Mom” was close to panic herself. She sat in a parking lot of a store bordering the woods, looking desperately into them, calling Valen’s name, and talking to anyone who stopped by. As evening arrived, she went home to another sleepless night without Valen.
Dog and Deer in the Woods
It was on “our” to-do list Sunday: go look for Valen. We tromped through the woods, and trespassed on all of the backyards along the way, calling Valen and holding out gas station hot dogs. Other than collecting every burr and thorn bush in Pataskala, we didn’t do much good. But we kept talking to people, showing them pictures of the dog, and asking them to keep an eye out.
The cool thing about Pataskala, and probably most smallish towns, is that people felt the pain and fear of losing their pet. They all were willing to help, to look, and to overlook those strange people going through their yards. We walked, then we drove, but we didn’t do much good. We stopped by “Mom”, back in a chair waiting in the parking lot, then we headed out to check off a few other items on our list.
And that’s when Jenn got the call. It was a lady in the neighborhood; Jenn talked to her husband on Saturday, and he had let the neighbors know about Valen. One of them saw a dog matching her description walking in a clump of trees in their backyard. Valen seemed to be hanging out there, along with a doe and her three fawns. Jenn contacted “Mom” and “Lost Pet Recovery” at the parking lot, and gave her the location.
“Mom” and “Dad” too, drove to the address, and went back into the woods. Valen was too panicked to come to her name, but with patience, sitting, waiting, and treats, Valen finally got close enough to “Dad” to recognize his smell and come to him. She went home, exhausted. “Mom” got her emotional support back, and a community got a success story.
Community Means Together
All those folks, on Facebook, in the woods, in the neighborhoods; the “pros” and the volunteers like Jenn, reunited a dog family. In a world so divided, no one asked what political party anyone supported, just a lot of people feeling one person’s pain, and doing what they could to make it better.
Jenn’s been on these searches before, and it doesn’t always end well. But this one did; it took the community to get this happy ending. Valen’s home, and Pataskala’s got something to smile about this morning.
