Allie and I approach and the dog bounds over. She play bows and runs around Allie - avoiding me. At one point I was sure we were making progress, it had been about an hour and I was sitting down in the grass with Allie and the dog near me. Still, she was not willing to be touched or approached. The wonderful Wendy's staff have been feeding her all morning, so food has no impact on her right now (I should have told them not to feed her in the morning, as caring as they are.) I periodically have to get into the car and turn it on to warm up and when we disappear into the car, the dog heads away. After a while, she begins to seem a bit dejected when she leaves. Sort of like, "Yeah, everyone always leaves..." I would warm up as I watched her to track where she went. When she got to a "certain distance" I would hustle Allie out of the car and get Allie out into the field so that the dog could see her. Then I would whistle my "dog whistle" - the dog would look and come BOUNDING towards Allie from wherever she was. So, accidentally, she was responding to my whistle cue and doing a recall :)
At this point, Allie and I would walk around the field with the dog and an observer might have thought that these were both my dogs and that the loose dog was the better trained since she didn't require a leash! That's how close the dog stayed to Allie and me. She just orbited us play bowing to Allie and running with us.
Eventually, the dog started to sit down near the car when we were warming up. Once or twice she even laid down. I had been able to start approaching her, though she still would not let me touch her. One time she laid down with her back to me near the front of my car and I duckwalked my way towards her inch by inch as I squatted down between cars. I talked to her the whole time and she looked at me occasionally. "This is it!", I thought as I held the leash clip open in my frozen hand - then she ran off to chase some birds. Drat! I had left the rear door open with Allie in the back seat and the dog had approached and appeared to consider jumping in before darting away. Drat! At another point, she would follow me around the car, though she would not let me touch her. It had been about 2.5 hours when I felt a change. I told the dog that I had to go to the bathroom (I knew once we entered the last phase a bathroom break would totally mess everything up.) I told her that I would be right back. She followed me towards the door to Wendy's, I actually turned back towards her and took a couple of steps thinking I should "make hay while the sun shines". She backed away though she kept looking at me. Okay, I'm taking my bathroom break and then we'll dance some more.
When I left the Wendy's building, the dog was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere. Not in any of the spots I had seen her go to that day. I scanned the grassy field and the stubbly crop field nearby. No sign. I scanned the roads. No sign. I scanned behind the Marathon station and the small repair shop. Wait! What was that? I saw movement and knew it was her. I quickly got Allie leashed and out of the car and we headed in that direction. I no longer saw any sign of the dog, we continued anyway. We walked across the whole field, behind the Marathon station and the repair shop and I whistled the whole way.
As we got to the repair shop, I saw her. She might have been coming up out of a small creek or drainage ditch - to get a drink maybe? When she saw Allie she came RUNNING towards us. We were back on track! We played her all the way back over to our car and then I walked Allie (and the dog) up to the drive thru window - it is time for hamburger. I knew she hadn't had any food for several hours and that she was used to getting snacks all the time from the window. I sat by the open car door with the hamburger and she took tiny bits from my hand - extremely gently. I tried sitting in the back seat with the door open, the front seat with my door open. She would take the bits of hamburger though she showed NO signs of getting into the car. Then something startled her and she moved off. I closed the doors and sat down near her as she sat on the grass between my car and the car next to us. As I fed her hamburger nibbles she seemed to relax a bit. After some time, I knew that my chance was at hand and I carefully moved both hands towards her with the open clip to our spare leash in my left hand. As I clipped the leash on her collar, she pulled back a little and felt the leash. At that point, I reached towards her and touched her cheek and she melted. She closed her eyes. I rubbed her cheek and then was rubbing both cheeks and kissed the top of her head. I looked over my shoulder and saw almost the entire Wendy's staff in the little drive thru window jumping and cheering.
However, she still wasn't in the car, though the leash was obviously a HUGE step forward. The Wendy's staff yelled out the window that they could bring me more hamburger if that would help and could help me lift her if I needed. I told them that I would rather not pick her up if we didn't need to though more hamburger would be great. I should note that the manager had been supplying me with hot tea the entire time that I was there :) Several staff members came out and brought some burgers. They were so excited to see the dog on a leash. I had decided the dog was likely a "she" since her collar was pink - thank God for that collar. The dog was nervous though she let them approach. I told them they could pet her and a couple of them did. One of the women danced back into the building and I heard her saying, "I touched her! I touched her!" Now, the car. The dog obviously wasn't going to just jump in. She was pulling away from me whenever she got startled. I inched her towards the car with hamburger and opened the rear door. No deal. Not even with Allie in there. She was adamant. NO! Her version of adamant consisted of sitting down and refusing treats or pulling back - pretty clear. At one point I moved toward the car and she moved closer to me (i.e., closer to the car.) Then I got an idea - what if I climb in to the car? As I climbed into the back seat with Allie, I saw paws on the seat behind me and before I could turn around she was in the car with us! Of her own choice. She jumped in. I petted her and fed her treats and then carefully climbed back out and closed the door. I turned toward the drive thru window and that time we ALL jumped and cheered.
I went inside to talk to the staff and use the bathroom one more time. I kept looking at the car and I just saw two dog heads looking back, casual as can be. The manager gave me a sandwich and soda for the trip home and after I got settled in the car I backed up into the drive thru lane so that they could all get one more up close look at "their dog."
I have since communicated with the Morrow County Dog Warden who is a great person and also with the Wendy's staff. They are all aware that "the dog" now known as Scout is doing well and is safe and healthy. Scout did not have a microchip, so unless someone comes looking for her we don't have a way to find her previous owners. The Dog Warden said that she had been running loose in that area for 6-7 WEEKS and no one had been able to catch her and she had avoided their humane traps too. What lies next for Scout remains to be seen. There is more to this story and I'll keep posting... She has some challenges from her time running wild and probably from her past life, too - don't we all?
Not coincidentally, our spare leash that helped tame Scout has a slogan embossed on it - Life Is Good. For Scout, life is good - and getting better! Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment