Anniversary

Day 25.

Incidentally, today is the 5th anniversary of Lucy's adoption.  Or maybe tomorrow should be.  See, the quirky thing is that we adopted her on Leap Day of 2004 (Feb. 29).  So I never quite know whether the anniversary should be the 28th, or March 1st.  Maybe Lucy will come wandering up to our front door tomorrow, and that'll settle the matter.

In any case, we had gone to an adoption clinic at the Pet Smart in Wilton, NY.  The SPCA of Upstate NY had a bunch of dogs, at least several of whom had been rescued from a kill shelter in Tennessee.  (A volunteer had rented a van, driven down to TN, and then drove back up to NY with as many dogs as she could fit in the van.)  We weren't particularly planning on adopting a dog that day, but we were testing the waters with an intention of getting a dog in the near future.  Steph had wanted to go see a dog named Nitro; I think she had seen him on Petfinder.org.  While she was looking at Nitro, I looked at the kennel next to his.  I saw Lucy's face and felt a little bit like I had found my way home at the end of a long night.

We took her for a walk in the parking lot, where she dropped a gigantic steaming poo.  After I picked it up, we looked at each other and said, "She just kind of feels like our dog."

So, without having set out to do so, we went home with a dog that Saturday.  And of course, at some point during that first week, I think we each had several "Oh god, what have we done" moments, but things settled.  Eventually.  (Sometime remind me to tell you the story of the feather pillow.)  We managed to train her, she reciprocated by training us a little too.  She has unabashedly butt-wiggled her way into the hearts of virtually every person she's met.  And since that Leap Day, she has inhabited a substantial place at the core of things for me.

Another Maybe...at least

Day 23-24.

Circumstantial evidence makes me think this one is surely Lucy.  Unfortunately the man who spotted her can't be certain.  It sounded like he got a little bit of a view of her markings, and they seemed consistent with Lucy.

He saw her on Blagden Ave., between Allison and 17th Streets.  Hey, you know what's between Allison & 17th on Blagden?  18th Street.

Of COURSE she disappeared a few minutes after the man saw her.  And since I happened to be out at that time (around midnight) checking traps, I drove over to Blagden about 20 minutes after he saw her.  No dice.  Her ninjary is strong.

But the good news is that there is a definite pattern here.  That stretch of Blagden is definitely on her route.  I just wish we had a clearer picture of what the whole route is, so we can predict where she'll be next.

Did You Call Me Today?

This afternoon, around 3:30, I received a call from someone who seemed very excited, and claimed to have found Lucy.  (It sounded like the dog ran off before the person could get to her though.)

I could not hear a lot of what was said, so am not sure I heard the name of the street properly, and we didn't have time to get into any details before the call was dropped.  The caller's number was blocked on my caller ID so I have no way of contacting this person.

If it was you, please call back so I can ask some more details about where you were, or at least email us at Info@LostLucy.com.  Thanks!

New Sighting! Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!

We had a sighting today, shortly after noon. A woman saw a white dog that looked very much like the one on our fliers, on the 4700 block of Linnean Ave., heading north. If you're familiar with our map of Lucy sightings, you know why this is significant.

That block runs between Davenport St. and Chesterfield Pl. Lucy has been spotted on both Davenport and Chesterfield (one was likely, the other a "maybe").

The woman wasn't positive that the dog she saw was Lucy, but given the location and the fact that she thinks it was the right dog, I'm chalking this one up as a sighting.

In other news, the new issue of the Washington City Paper came out today, and everyone should go out and grab a copy before the next issue replaces it next Thursday. Turn to page 17, in particular. It's a great article, and well written by Jule Banville, but it also just looks great in print. Plus the photo of Lucy is HUGE. (See the crappy cell phone camera pic above.)

So another heartfelt thanks to Jule and the City Paper. Publicity like this is incalculably helpful.

Helicopters!

Choppers! Hueys! I can't think of a third slang term for them, so I'll repeat helicopters!

Through some good investigative phone calling, our friend and angel Donna has discovered that the National Park Service owns and maintains a helicopter whose sole reason for existence is to patrol Rock Creek Park twice a day. Donna spoke to the nice people with the Park Service, and they offered to keep a copy of our Lucy flier in the 'copter, and to keep their eyes peeled for her. Both of the two pilots who fly the park patrols will have our phone number with them in case they see Lucy wandering in the park. I've been told that they easily spot dogs from the air, and usually can even tell when the dog is with a person or not.

Donna had previously looked into having a flight school's helicopters do training flights over that area too, but they have to apply for a waiver. See, we're within 7 miles of the White House, so there are some significant flight restrictions over the area. But the Park Service don't need no steenking waiver. So that's pretty terrific. And since someone else was just telling us they should have some nightvision goggles at some point in the near future, this Lucy search is becoming more and more like a Tom Clancy novel. I wish Lucy could comprehend everything that's going on because of her.

So a big THANK YOU to the National Park Service and the kind helicopter pilots who will be looking out for Goose.

(Note: Lucy's nicknames are legion. Goose is just one of them.)

More Fliering on Saturday Feb. 28th!

Hello all,

We're having another event on Saturday.  We haven't had any sighting since Saturday so we want to expand our fliering in case Lucy has moved into another area.  Please join us if you have some time.

Meeting Time: 12 p.m.

Location: Carter Barron Amphitheater parking lot.  (See a map)

RSVP at info@lostlucy.com so we know how many fliers to bring.  If you have tape and/or a staple gun bring them along!

Hope to see you Saturday!

Sarah

Possible Sighting

We got some fliers posted yesterday, which is great.  We're grateful for the help of the volunteers who came out and gave up part of their Saturday to help us.  But the bigger news is the possible sighting.

The person who saw the dog did not get a great look at it, but he did say it was a white dog with some black markings on its back.  It was on one of the hiking trails in the woods behind Upshur St.  The reasons I bumped this up to an actual sighting from a "maybe" are that we know Lucy has been in and out of that patch of woods, it would explain where she was for the few days since our previous sighting, and there's sock evidence.  Oh yes, sock evidence.

Not too far off one of the trails in that area, about a week earlier, we had set up a scent/feeding station, along with a motion-sensor camera.  We laid out a t-shirt and a few socks, unwashed and stinky the way Lucy likes them, scattered some food around there, and set up the camera.  The camera snapped a lovely picture of empty air, and all the food was gone the next day.  We never replenished the food when we retrieved the camera, but we left the laundry.

Shortly after the sighting yesterday, Sarah found one of the socks in the middle of the trail, nowhere near where the station had been.  And it had Lucy hairs all over it.

Now, obviously the hairs could have been on it when we left it out there; neither of us can remember for certain.  And several possibilities could explain how the sock moved.  So we're not getting our hopes too high.  But I think the sock hadn't had any hair on it, and the wind and rain of Wed. and Thurs. would have taken most of it off anyway (and the wind couldn't have blown the sock down the hill and up and around the path to where it was found).  And this is what Lucy does.  She takes a sock out of the laundry basket and carries it around the house a bit until it falls out of her mouth, or she sits down with it between her paws.

If you know Lucy, you can probably picture her running around the woods with one of my socks dangling from her mouth.

So, in the end, we moved one of the traps over to this area, just outside the woods, hoping she'll emerge right nearby.  Here's hoping...