All last week I've been working with Shaggy. I feeding him on my morning, and after work walks. Slowly I'm gaining his trust. I've gotten him to sit before I feed him. Then feeding him by hand. Shaggy has even let me stroke and scratch him while he eats. (His skin is in bad shape covered in scabs from fleas.) He is still leery of me. Jumping nearly a foot in the air when I sprayed him with an herbal anti-flea/tick treatment. By Friday the flea treatments seem to have worked as he isn't constantly scratching.
Then late Friday the fateful call came. I was home early from work. (The new "faster" internet connection was having issues which left us off the internet, phones unusable, and the alarm occasional going off.) My wife was down with a migraine which left us unable to head out camping, and I was wondering how to broach the idea capturing Shaggy today. At which point my phone rang. Lisa, an animal control officer, was in the area looking for Shaggy.
I grabbed some food, Indy and headed out meet up with her. We cross the dry creek and approached Shaggy's den. Shaggy comes out as usual out when I call, and seems happy to see Indy. He is leery of Lisa, but food convinces him rapidly to approach us. He recognizes her attempts to slip a leash on him, and easily evades her.
So we regroup. She puts the food bowl down, and positions a snare pole's loop around it. Shaggy is leery, but I feed him a little by hand. He goes for it, and Lisa expertly loops the snare pole around his neck and pulls it tight.
Shaggy desperately writhes in the nooses grip. My heart sinks at the betrayal of his fragile trust. The struggle lasts an eternity, or perhaps as much as 20 seconds. Indy is draw by Shaggy's struggles, and I have to hold him back. I don't know if it was an attempt to help, discipline, or just curiosity. After Shaggy calms a bit more we head back with obvious unease and occasional attempts to bolt. Shaggy seems to calm when I bring Indy to walk beside him.
The creek that we had easily crossed a few minutes before seem a bit daunting to cross with Shaggy. I offer to walk Shaggy back to the bridge while she drives over to meet us. I walk back with Shaggy and get a number of odd looks as I walk through the more populated park area. He still has snare pole and a leash around his neck, and he is a bit wild on the leash. Soon he settles, and the walk is some what pleasant and strange.
We meet up with Lisa and she scans him. To her surprise she find an embedded microchip. We both had until this point thought that Shaggy had been abandoned by the creek. It's possible given his skittishness that he was frighten by fireworks, and has been lost for a month or so. The chip is an unfamiliar one to her, and not used by local shelters or most vets in the area. The company that issues it has an 1800 number only staffed 9-5, and that 9-5 isn't PST.
Lisa tells me they will attempt to find his prior owners, and if they can't be found then he will be tested for suitability for adoption. If he fails he will be put down. She isn't hopeful given how much he shys from touch. I ask if I can foster him or adopt if he fails. No apparently only a rescue group would be able to claim him at that point. I'm not entirely surprised. I've figured that I might need to involve a rescue group to find him a home or retrieve from the pound. I've already sounded out a few groups. I'd have to foster him myself as most rescue groups are pretty much completely full.
Tough stuff. We've had several strays picked up over the years; most went back to their original owners. One made it quite clear he was adopting us (that one was a cat).
ReplyDeleteOne dog was very painful to let go back to the owner; he was very young and so matted that it was obvious he was severely neglected at home (he'd only been away from home for the day). We decided if that particular dog ever showed up at our house again, we wouldn't call the owner, we'd call a rescue group.