The Rip Van Wrinkler, XVIII, Issue 4, November 2014

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Courage symbol

Gotcha ChaCha by Lisa Hart

& Safety Steps You Can Take Before Your Dog Escapes
by Jackie Dering


Lisa Hart, July 31

GOTCHA aka CHA CHA


GCh DC Emerant's Sheez Gotcha MC LCX JOR ORC - Woodard photo

Now that I have had time to reflect, I want to jot down "lessons learned" to hopefully help future lost basenjis.

We were very lucky to have "found" our girl within 24 hours.....Since we were on vacation we had few resources or local contacts. While initially searching for sightings, I was instructed by a local resident to go to the police station and report her missing. I also called my sister Lori and requested she make a poster/flyer and put an ad on Craigslist. I had the other 4 people in my party searching the beach and city. When Cha Cha's trail went cold (about 2 blocks where I lost sight of her)....I went to the police station

The police station put me in contact with animal control. Animal Control took my information and gave me some tips about where to post flyers where they would be seen. The police station agreed to post Cha Cha's missing poster. In fact their policy was to hand out a poster to every officer on patrol (pretty awesome - this community rocks)!

LESSON- always have a flyer ready AND WITH YOU for any dog you are traveling with! Duh!!! I knew this but neglected to load it in my phone. The flyer was at home on my computer and had to be re-invented.

While the flyer was reinvented, I went to the only veterinarian in Ocean Shores to see if Cha Cha had been turned in. Cha Cha was not there but again....the veterinarian gave me tips.

I called everyone I knew who had contacts in Ocean Shores- Big thank you to Sarah Smith-Falkner and Lori Youngs for helping to get the word out in the area.

LESSON: Getting the word out to locals was key to finding Cha Cha- it was a local city worker who ultimately helped us find her. Plus social media - within 20 hours, almost all of local residents I spoke with had either seen Cha Cha on FB, had talked to one of the search team or had received an email about her. Special thank you to Nicole and all of the others who spread the word and shared Cha Cha's information. I cannot thank you enough! It is truly what saved her!

Lori had put the ad on Craigs list and within a couple of hours of losing Cha Cha I received a phone call from the local pet rescue group who had seen the ad. They helped by making sure I had covered all bases and again networked for us in the local community. They knew local pet trackers and live trappers etc . Amazing and so very helpful.

Bryce and I "papered the town" with the flyers. This city has a "no poster" law so I prepared to "paper the town" the next day too since I knew the majority of the posters would be taken down! I knew it would just take one person to see the poster and then see our baby girl-and call us and she would be found.

I considered hiring air support as this has worked in the past for a friend to find their dogs, but it was so foggy the visibility was awful.

I did have the contact of a pet tracker in Western WA stored in my phone. I called to enlist his help but the problem was I had no specific item of Cha Cha's to use as a scent article. We could have used her brother Gus's collar (close DNA match works as a scent article too) but I had taken Gus with me everywhere to search for Cha Cha so his scent was everywhere already.

LESSON: Keep dog specific scent articles. Take a sterile gauze 4x4 and wearing gloves, rub it on the dog, immediately put it in a ziplock freezer bag and store it in the freezer. It is good for up to 3 years. A pet tracker is good for finding a pet who is hiding somewhere but probably won't be able to track down a fast moving mobile dog. I was willing to hire one to rule out her hiding somewhere ......we were fortunate enough to know which direction she was traveling before she disappeared and if she was hurt and hiding a pet tracker could have been very helpful.

Other approaches to find her included activating a call network service that will call the closest 250 homes to notify them of the lost pet. This was set up to start the morning we found her, so not used but may have been very helpful! Thank you Therese Leimback! You are amazing!!!!

It was a long night without Cha Cha! I got up at dawn and began again. Calling, posting, searching, praying! In that 24 hours so many people changed their plans and were coming down to search with me, even people I did not know.....makes me cry just thinking about it!

LESSON: WE have an amazing network of loving, caring dog friendly people who are more than willing to go out of their way to help! WOW! Brenda Philips

At 9:19 am a city worker called in a sighting at the same location where she was last seen the day before, we were 2 blocks away and raced to the location. Within minutes we had 3 more calls of sightings. Bryce got there first and parked his truck across the road to block traffic. Cha Cha was skittish and afraid to come- he laid down in the road and softly called for her.....and she came to him!

I did not document everything we did and many of things you my have heard before.... I did lots of things wrong.... feel like an idiot for losing my dog, but the fact is it can happen to anyone. 32 years in basenjis and I have never personally gone thru this-- I have been lucky. Karla I feel your pain!  THANKS EVERYONE!


Safety Steps You Can Take Before Your Dog Escapes

 (First printed in American Drumbeat, Summer 2014, and reprinted with permission)

 by Jackie Dering

 Last week Karla Schreiber’s precious Lukuru FoPaws Like Diamonds at New World (Rihanna) escaped her fenced yard in the Chicago area and was missing for two days before she was found alive and mostly well. We are all so grateful to have Karla’s RiRi back. A couple of weeks before Rihanna’s adventure something (I think a fox) was nesting under the shed of the property adjacent to mine. Luke (FoPaw’s Cool Hand Lukuru), Rihanna’s brother who normally is not a roamer became obsessed with getting over to the nesting site. He muscled his way out of my yard four or five times in one weekend leaving us to do some heavy duty fence repair and replacement. I am pleased to tell you that Luke did come when he was called and the urge to roam has passed for now, however, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I learned from the experience and I wanted to share.

Luke

1.    Inspect fences regularly.

2.    Critters dig in as well as out so what was a solid fence bottom may now be a path. Concrete pavers along the fence bottom will prevent digging and the dog can’t roll them out of the way like they can roll rocks. 

3.    For climbers Therese Leimback tells me that cat fencing will do the trick. This is fencing that  curves back into the yard and goes at  the top of a fence preventing climbers from going over the top.  The fencing she suggests can be found at http://www.lisaviolet.com/cathouse/backyard.html. Andrea Stone suggests coyote rollers, which is tubing that spins at the top of the fence when uninvited paws reach the top causing critters including your dogs to fall back on the side they started from.

4.    If possible have an emergency exit for the humans at the back of the yard to avoid having to go all the way around the yard to get to the dog. We put one in for other reasons, but it was a lifesaver for getting to Luke quickly.

5.    Keep a leash with an attached martingale or other easily placed collar and a bag of treats near the door to save time.

6.    Work on recall, work on recall, and work on recall. I use the word “inside” to mean it’s time to come in the house. “Come” means come to me wherever I am and I mean it. When I yell “come” I try to do it in a happy, snappy voice with three or four quick repetitions “Dog name, come, come, come” often with a woohoo or clapping at the end while either sitting down or running in the direction I want the dog to go in.

7.    Dog always gets rewarded for coming and more rewards and praise as the collar goes on. In the situation with Luke he got cookies and a bit of a walk after he came to me so he would be more likely to respond the next time.

8.    Walk your dogs around the neighborhood enough so that they know their way around and can find their way home if you are unable to catch them.

9.    Have flyers or at least pictures and wording for flyers ready to go on your computer. You will not do a good job on them while in the throes of missing your dog.  Andrea Stone recommends http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/recovery-tips/posters-5555/ for instructions on making a good flyer.

10. Andrea also recommends having  an action plan ready including who to call, numbers of local vets and shelters as well as local police departments, where to hang posters, and where to hand out flyers.

11. There are several sites that deal with how to find a lost dog. Take time to read a couple of them. {Editor: HERE}


Couldn't leave Harley out.

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