The last few weeks were busy \u201cdog weeks\u201d for Lost Pet Recovery (LPR), and our household. My wife Jenn was completely immersed in finding a nearby dog for two weeks, working to get a lost Great Dane back to her home in Kirkersville. Ella was a new arrival there, and got out on her second day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She \u201cdisappeared\u201d, but really didn\u2019t go very far. Thanks to the dozens of signs put out on the roads, \u201cLost Dog \u2013 Great Dane \u2013 DO NOT CHASE call (Jenn\u2019s number)\u201d, we knew she was still hanging around the small village. And Jenn was just behind her, putting up cameras and leaving \u201cbait\u201d: dog food, Vienna sausages, chicken broth, the occasional McDonald\u2019s burger; and hoping to spot her on a trail cam. The idea: get her to come back to eat, then \u201cdrop\u201d a trap (a really big trap for a Great Dane) and get her safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The calls kept coming in for a week, but Ella never found the bait, and was never on camera. There was no place to put a trap, because there no place where Ella stayed. Then, as we drove to a birthday party for a friend on Sunday, the phone rang. Ella was in the \u201ccorn maize\u201d at Van Buren Acres, a pumpkin place right beside I-70. Four LPR members converged in the pouring rain at the maize, and wandered the paths looking for a glimpse of the 150 pound gray Dane. You haven\u2019t experienced farm life if you haven\u2019t been in a corn maize in a downpour. But Ella was already gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So more signs went up, and Jenn talked to the entire neighborhood on the access road by the Interstate and the farmer who owned the surrounding cornfields. Trail cameras were posted, but it really was more sightings from the neighborhood that let us know that Ella was still hanging around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenn and I were searching a cornfield on Thursday when the call came in \u2013 Ella is in the backyard heading west!! We raced to get ahead of her to put down a trap, but we arrived just in time for Ella to look in the window of the home, and turn back into the corn. We didn\u2019t get her. But finally, one pile of food disappeared, just outside of an isolated hay barn. Jenn was adding more food and setting up a camera there when Ella emerged from behind the barn, sniffed the air, then sauntered off into the corn. Jenn \u201cdropped\u201d a trap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a sleepless night, waiting for the phone alarm to go off \u2013 something moving at the trap. But it wasn\u2019t until the next morning that Ella was caught on camera, stretching into the trap and getting the food \u2013 but missing the trigger to set if off. Ella ate, then wandered away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenn reset the bait, this time with sausage biscuits, and carefully checked the trap. After the sleepless night before, she went to bed early. Ella, a true \u201cBuckeye\u201d, must have been aware of the Ohio State football schedule. She waited until just after the Penn State game was over, then went back into the trap for more food. This time the gate slammed shut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We raced the twenty minutes to the trap and got there about 12:30 am. Other members of the LPR team joined us, and we lifted Ella, trap and all, into the back of our pickup truck. We drove her to her \u201cGrandma\u2019s\u201d garage. At first, she was \u201cshaking\u201d scared, but as she came out of the trap in the garage, she relaxed, leaned on Jenn\u2019s leg, and turned into the sweetest girl. She gave Jenn a lick as we said goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the high of finding lost dogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are lows as well. Pearl was a beautiful Golden Retriever who was rescued from a breeder. She was never socialized to people, just kept in a cage to make puppies. The Rescue had her checked out by the vet, then sent to a family in Dublin, Ohio. Pearl was there nine days, when she slipped out the door \u2013 and she was off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pearl was gone for weeks in the hot July sun. But she didn\u2019t go too far. She stayed along a creek in a neighborhood park, hiding in the tall grasses. LPR got involved and set up a feeding station, that Pearl, and all the raccoons in the neighborhood, were happy to use. But when LPR put out a trap, Pearl wouldn\u2019t even get near it. She had spent much of her life in cage \u2013 no amount of food would get past the fear of the trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if you can\u2019t get a dog in a trap, and there\u2019s no way to lure her, then what other alternatives are there? There\u2019s a bigger trap, really more like a kennel cage, called a panel trap. So we started with one panel near the food. The change threw Pearl off for a while, but she finally started eating again. We added a second and a third panel, and in time Pearl would stretch into the area to get food. But she always ready to jump back and get away. We hoped that we could complete the panel, and eventually close the door to rescue Pearl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hauled bags of food a couple hundred yards through the brush, three times a week. Pearl would always show up on camera, nervously eating what was available. Sometimes she was by herself, but often the raccoons and possums joined in the repast. One afternoon, Jenn and I were bringing in the food, when Pearl and some deer emerged from the grass and ran off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hoped we hadn\u2019t scared her too badly, but we were glad she found companionship with the deer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This went from July through August and into September. The park maintenance workers cut the tall grass, changing the environment, but Pearl eventually returned to the food. The nearby High School came into session, and on football game nights (and their home cross country meet) Pearl would disappear for a while, but she soon came back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were slowly conditioning Pearl to the panel-trap, and to a \u201cschedule\u201d of coming back for more food. She was finally becoming \u201cpredictable\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then one day, there was a human figure with a leash on camera. Pearl was gone. When we went back with more food, we found a tennis ball right beside the panels. Perhaps \u201cthe figure\u201d decided he could catch Pearl, maybe hoping he could entice her to \u201cplay ball\u201d. We don\u2019t know what happened, but we are pretty sure she wouldn\u2019t know what the tennis ball was for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pearl ran off, far down the creek. We had one more sighting, this time about a mile away down Indian Creek in Dublin. Then Pearl was gone. That was on October 1st. We continued to leave food for her, sausage biscuits, her favorite, until it was clear that she moved on. Then LPR put up more signs around Dublin, hoping for a sighting so we could get back to feeding her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On November 1st, Pearl\u2019s body was found along railroad tracks in Marion County, about twenty-six miles away from where we last saw her. We don\u2019t know exactly how she got there, the creek meanders down to the Scioto River, and there are railroad tracks near where the Scioto flows across the Delaware\/Marion County border. She was a beautiful, fearful, dog, that that we were unable to save. From the high of Ella on Sunday, we had the low of Pearl on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are other dogs out there. LPR has been involved in over two hundred rescues just this year. Sometimes we get the dog right away. Sometimes we advise the owners how to find their own lost dogs. Then there are the projects, the \u201cElla\u2019s\u201d where we have to out-think and get lucky to bring a dog home. But the Pearl\u2019s stick with us, more than the successes. It\u2019s hard to get past that beautiful, scared, dog, running with the deer in Dublin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there’s always another dog missing – time to go back to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lost Pet Recovery is a non-profit organization.\u00a0\u00a0We don\u2019t charge for any of our efforts, and no one gets paid.\u00a0\u00a0But these efforts do cost money \u2013 equipment, bait, cameras, gas, and more.\u00a0\u00a0If you\u2019d like to support our efforts, you can donate through\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>, through PayPal at\u00a0<\/em>info@lostpetrecovery.org<\/em><\/a>, or you can use the old fashioned way \u2013 a check to Lost Pet Recovery, PO Box 16383, Columbus, OH<\/em>, 43216<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sunday Series<\/h3>\n\n\n\n