Media Exposure

OH, one more thing I forgot to mention in my last post.  (Two things, really, but somehow conceptually related in my mind.)

Jule Banville posted an update to her previous article about Lucy.  If you haven't read the original, go here.  And in case you were unaware, the City Paper also published this article in their print edition, last Thursday.  If you're in the DC area, go pick up a copy before they disappear, and before the new issue comes on this Thursday.

For the new article, click here.  This one is also well written and enjoyable.  (And we especially appreciate the mention of our flyering party this past Saturday.)  Jule, if only I sat on the Pulitzer board . . .

Second, I received a call from a Washington Post reporter.  She is doing a story on the Find Toto service.  Three people in her office, including one of the editors, had received Find Toto calls regarding Lucy, so that led her to me.  Even though the article will focus on Find Toto, I'm hoping it will mention Lucy prominently.  She even asked me for a photo of Lucy.  This would, obviously, be great exposure.

And as I've said before, when we eventually find Lucy, it'll be because someone who knows her story calls us, or happens to coax her into their house with a hot dog.  So disseminating the information is really our highest priority here.

Weekend Activities

First, a big thanks to Will, and Michele & Dave, for coming out to help us on Saturday.  In particular, I want to point out that Michele and Dave drove down from Baltimore just to help us hang fliers.  That's remarkable, and shames me and my paltry generosity.

And of course, thanks also to the usual crew (Lisa, Daphne, Donna, Nancy, et al).  It's wonderful and amazing how much more gets done than when it's just Sarah and myself.

So fliers were hung.  Helicopters were flown.  Woods were hiked.  

The extraordinary National Park Service chopper pilots were specifically on the lookout for Lucy this weekend.  We appreciate this greatly.  Now, with the snow on the ground, I imagine spotting her will be more difficult by a power of ten, but at least the weather is predicted to warm up this week.

At least the snow allowed us to see tracks.  Unfortunately none of them belonged to Lucy.

I also hiked clear across Rock Creek Park to get an idea of how Lucy might be traversing it.  The bad news is that there are a million ways for her to cross the park, and no bottlenecks where we could place a trap.  But this also means that it's entirely feasible for her to cross back and forth in a day, possibly multiple times.

We also started getting some harassing phone calls.  Probably a group of teenagers just being punks.  "I have your dog.  I want $10,000."  "I found your dog, it's dead."  And so on.  What I don't get is where's the entertainment value in that?  I mean, if you are a cognitively challenged jackass, I guess tricking someone into believing you might be funny, but they couldn't even pull that off.  So why keep calling back?  Even if they're just mean and enjoy upsetting people, they weren't getting very far with that either, so, again, why keep calling back?  I don't get where this becomes fun for a person.

Ah well, in any event, this coming week we'll try to stake-out some of the Lucy sightings during trash nights.  We'll see if she makes a reappearance.  Also, there's a thing with a stray dog that was seen at an embassy, but I don't want to go into detail until, well, until I have details.  Which will be tomorrow.  But I'm keeping hopeful that this one is Lucy and not some other stray white dog with a similar collar.  That would just suck.

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.)