Search and Track Party Tonight!

Hello! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! I am actually on the way back to DC from the midwest, but fantastic volunteers are continuing efforts to find Olivia before I arrive. Tonight at 6, meet at 6th and Water Streets SW. There's a parking lot there; actually several, but if you get there and can't find other people (or if you have other questions), please call Karen at (240) 723-6893.

I got a call several nights ago from someone claiming to see Olivia and wanting the reward, but he didn't give a location sufficient for us to find them. What's worrisome is that he also said she had a broken leg. I don't know whether any of what he said is credible or not, but it's entirely possible that she's injured and it's definitely true that the weather is colder, so finding her feels even more urgent now!

We are planning to have another search tomorrow, time t.b.d. I will be back by then and will participate in the search, but if you have questions or need to contact someone about this in the meantime, please call Debbie at (703) 967-7463. By the way, we should soon have a fund-raising / donation link on the blog as well!

Thanks again for your help and hope to see you out searching!

More Good News!

No, I didn't mistakenly post this message twice - we do have yet another sighting! Last night I got a call from a security guard in a parking lot at 6th and Water. He'd seen olivia 5 minutes earlier! I got there as fast as I could and he gave me really good, specific information and little Leah and I set out after her. Leah's not quite up to Chewy or Salsa's level yet, but she did clearly follow a scent for a block or so to the walkway a little bit back from the waterfront walkway. After that, I think she just ran around sniffing whatever she wanted. Anyway, we didn't find Olivia and after a little while we stopped looking 'cause it was dark and I was by myself. But we're so close! Wouldn't finding her be something for which to be thankful?! (Actually, I'm thankful just to know that precious, sweet girl and to have met all of you great rescue-dog people helping me find her, but her homecoming would be wonderful!)

p.s. I have to leave town today and I'll have limited email access, so forgive me if I don't get back to you right away. I'll also post a list of people who will be around in case you need to contact one of Livvie's buddies before I get back.

Another Sighting - Need Outreach and Weekend Help

Yesterday I went out with Sam and her dog Salsa again to try to find Olivia's scent in her (now 3rd) new neighborhood. Unfortunately, the information we had from the sighting wasn't specific enough to give us a particular place to start. Without that to focus her, Salsa decided to turn her attention to hunting squirrels instead. It was pretty frustrating because I knew she had been around there somewhere but, because we didn't know exactly where, we couldn't search anywhere. (Salsa may be a great tracking dog, but she's still a dog, and there were tons and tons of squirrels!) We may have found Olivia's scent at some point, but we couldn't tell the difference between excitement from that and frenzy over the millions of squirrels running around, so it was basically a waste.

When that didn't work, we drove around putting up posters at major intersections in the area. We were starting to do smaller intersections when I ran into some people hanging out outside a building and asked them to watch out for Olivia. Much to my delight, one of them said, "I saw that dog yesterday." I asked her several specific questions to get the information we would need to track her from there or at least put up a feeding station:
What day and time had she seen her?
Where - On which corner of that intersection?
What was she doing?
Did you see her leave? Which way did she go?
The more information we can get from each sighting, the closer we'll be to finding her.

This time, I was even more encouraged, partly because it confirmed the earlier sighting, but mostly because it gave me much more specific information. That was where my luck ended, however, because it was way too late to start tracking then, so it was a waste of a trip for Sam (and a waste of the time and money for me). Speaking of money, I have been meaning to start fundraising to finance this search. When I offered to foster Olivia, I made sure that the rescue would cover all of her medical costs because, though I have the time and ability to foster, that's partly because I am unemployed, which keeps me from being able to pay for all aspects of her care. I didn't want to be an irresponsible foster-mama and take her on when I couldn't provide what she needed, but I thought as long as her medical costs were covered, I could provide her basic food and other everyday expenses. I did not think to ask who would pay for dog-search costs if she ran away - I have never lost a dog before, so it didn't even occur to me, nor did I know how incredibly expensive it could be.

Now, several hundred dollars later (with no end in sight!), I am essentially on my own. Unfortunately for me, her rescue is not helping at all (though the other day they did send a helpful suggestion that I put up fliers). Anyway, I am sorry to have to say this, but I do not have any more money to spend (much less to spend on Olivia's search), so I need to find outside funding. Does anyone have any experience fundraising? (I have exactly none.) Is lost-dog-searching in the budget for any rescue that might be willing to help out? Do you have any other ideas for how I can pay for this? I would hate to have to forgo further efforts that might help her and have her suffer just because she drew the unlucky foster parent who couldn't afford a more extensive search.

Here comes my usual plea: please help put up posters and hand out business cards in her new area (basically SW, south of the Southwest Freeway and west of South Capitol Street). I know (and thank you to the) many of you have already put up lots of posters (as have I), but unfortunately, she keeps moving, so now we have to put more somewhere else. I have loads of posters and business cards; I just need help distributing them. I am going to put more posters today (and also Sonia is going to help me put up feeding stations), and I will try to spend some time handing out business cards at the Waterfront Metro stop, but I can only do so much.

Finally, I have to leave town tomorrow for a week. (!) I hate to go while Olivia is still out there, but I planned this trip to visit my family for Thanksgiving long before I even knew about Olivia and I don't think I can cancel now. This means, however, that I will need people here to cover for me in case of a sighting or (if we're super-lucky) someone has her and we could go pick her up. I will still be on-call 24/7 - it is my phone that's on every flyer and business card - but is there someone here whom I could call if I need something in DC while I'm gone? It may end up being no work at all; I just don't know. Is anyone going to be around over the holiday weekend who wouldn't mind going to look for her / set up a feeding station if someone sees her or to get her if someone has her? If so, please let me know. As usual, it would not need to be for the whole time - I could divide up the weekend by days or even parts of days if necessary. Anyway, please email me if you can do this.

Thank you for hanging in there with me (/Olivia) and continuing to help and care!

New Sighting!

More good news: we just got a new sighting!

Sandra was giving out Olivia's business cards at the Navy Yard Metro stop and a man said he had just seen Olivia about 20 minutes earlier (about 5pm) near Ft. McNair in SW DC. I drove over there and, while I couldn't get on the army base, I did drive around the neighborhood looking for her. Unfortunately, I didn't find her (not that I expected her to be sitting on a corner waiting to be picked up or anything), but at least now we know we have a new place to look.

Sandra has already moved over there to start putting up fliers and giving out business cards at the Waterfront Metro stop. I will contact the tracker again but, in the meantime, we need to get as many fliers up and as many business cards out in that area as possible. Basically, I think we need to cover the area west of South Capitol Street and south of M Street (or west of Maine Avenue where M Street ends) to the waterfront. It sounds like a lot but, because we don't have access to a lot of it (the army base), it is actually probably a smaller area than where we were looking before in SE. Please put up fliers and look for her if you can - the later it gets, the colder it's getting, and soon I have to go out of town for Thanksgiving. It would be soooo great to have her home before then!

Thanks for your help and let's hope this leads us to her!

Update on Search for Olivia

Though Olivia is still not home, I am hopeful that we will find her.

We have put lots of fliers up in her new neighborhood near Navy Yard and are giving out business cards to just about everyone we see there. I still need lots of help, though. My latest setback: many of the fliers taped to signs and things blew away in the wind leaving empty sheet protectors, so now I need to redo them. (I am now stapling the fliers into the sheet protectors so that won't happen again.) The places where we most need to put up fliers are L and M streets, between 2nd and 6th, and the blocks on the numbered streets that connect them. I have lots and lots of posters, so don't worry about putting up too many or putting them too close together. I want people to see this poster everywhere they go!

I also really want to cover the Navy Yard Metro stop to give out business cards this evening during rush hour. If people can do little shifts, we can get the people leaving work (around 5-6) as well as the people arriving home (probably more like 5-6). I think it will be especially busy tonight because it's a Friday, so it's a great opportunity to reach a lot of people. If you can make it for a shift - and it doesn't have to be during rush hour - please send me an email so I can organize the timing and fill in where needed. (Because there is only one Metro stop in that area, I am also going to check Metro maps and see if there is a bus stop that is a transfer point or at least has many routes stopping there, and maybe we can cover that too.)

Even if you can't give out business cards at the Metro or a bus stop, please still put up fliers where and whenever you can. Another easy thing to do is to continue to forward her email, blog address, and fliers to anyone you can think of. Even if you have already sent it, maybe you could send an update to your list that says "Dog Still Lost" or Dog Still Missing."

Finally, I still need to check the shelter and stop by some vets and other businesses to talk to them and make sure that the poster is still up and prominent. If anyone has a car and can do some of these tasks or wouldn't mind driving me, that would be a big help.

Thank you all for continuing to help Olivia. We are doing so much and reaching so many people and I could never have done it alone!

Great News! We Found Her New Neighborhood!

Today I have by far the best news I have had yet. First, a little background that I had not had time to post when it happened. I got a report of a sighting by a couple who has a mastiff (and said they always notice mastiffs) of a mastiff getting into a silver station wagon with a man at 2nd and e se (4 blocks from where she hid in the bushes by the dog park). they said they live in that neighborhood and didn't recognize the dog, so we thought maybe he had managed to catch olivia and was taking her to the humane society or one of the vets. well, he didn't.

much worse, i had gotten a report of a dog who had been hit by a car on the suitland parkway from a woman who works with the humane society in maryland, then a separate call from someone else saying he had seen her on the suitland parkway. (the latter called back a few minutes later to say someone told him that that dog had gotten hit.) i drove out there immediately, but couldn't even find the dog. i called the dc department of public works (which is responsible for picking up dead dogs) to see if they had already picked it up, but they knew nothing about it. i feared the worst, but wanted to be sure either way, so i went out yesterday with sam of pure gold pet trackers to look for olivia's scent. not only did we not find olivia's scent, we didn't even look because we found the dog itself and it was a black and white pit. i'm sad for that dog but soooo relieved it wasn't olivia!

next we went to the home of the man with the silver station wagon (i had gotten his name and address from a neighbor but, as the caller said, the car had pulled away so he wasn't home when i was there or when i checked back later). this time he was home, and we met his lovely brindle boxer. unfortunately, there was no mastiff to be found.

finally, we went back to the site where the hot dog vendor had seen her (where we had set up a feeding station the night before). this time, the report was accurate: it was indeed olivia. unlike the last tracking attempt, this one was not thwarted by an intervening rain storm, so sam's dog salsa found olivia's scent and we tracked her for three miles. we did not end up three miles away, however, for she had been going in circles (looking for food). sam is confident that she is still in that neighborhood, but it is west of where we had been looking before, so it barely has any fliers up and we had barely given out any business cards there.

enter my desperate plea for help: today i want to cover every inch of that area with fliers and hand out as many business cards as possible, but i really need help to get that done. unfortunately, i am not free all day (as i have been pretty much every day since she ran away) because i have a job application due today. also, i am absolutely exhausted from last night's nearly 5-hour search. can any of you help today, even just for a little while? please email me or call me and we can coordinate times and places and, hopefully, we'll get another sighting so we can find her and bring her home. i hope you are all as encouraged as i am. thanks again for your help!

Saturday Search and Flyer-ing

Good morning,

Today is supposed to be a beautiful day and I plan to spend as much of it as possible out looking for beloved Olivia! Yesterday, I put posters up on much of Capitol Hill and north of the Hill toward our home where I had actually seen Olivia, and Shannon put up many posters around Navy Yard, but there are still many more places to cover, especially businesses near Eastern Market. I need to print more flyers and cut the tabs (and answer emails and check blogs to answer questions, etc.), but I aim to get started at noon at Eastern Market.

If someone is available to drive Leah and me from home to Eastern Market, that would save us some time. Also, the more people we can get to distribute business cards to people in that area (and others, for that matter), the better. Please either let me know if you can come help or just show up. I have made maps to divide up the places we need to cover and I don't think there could be such thing as too much help. Thank you and I hope to see you today!

By the way, maybe after we search we can go to Art and Soul, a restaurant north of the Hill that not only has a pet-friendly patio, it has a doggie-menu! That way, we could enjoy the weather and reward our dogs for their help with the search.

Good News: Possible Sighting!

Hello all,

Quick Summary:  We may have a new sighting near Navy Yard; and the flyer/search party tomorrow will begin at 5 pm at the exit of the Capitol South metro stop.

I have some really exciting news! On our search today, we found someone who may have seen beloved Olivia! A hot-dog vendor near the Eastern Market metro stop said that he saw her yesterday while he was riding his bike in the neighborhood. He said that she was headed toward Navy Yard, so I have a new focus for tomorrow's search. I am particularly encouraged because, when told there was a reward, he said that that wasn't what mattered to him, that he had lost his own dog once! (Maybe I am being too optimistic, and I admit I am incredibly eager for some good news, but I am not sure why someone would lie about having lost his dog, and I don't think that anyone who has been in that situation would lie about having seen a dog if he didn't want the reward. And I would think he, of all people, would know the harm false information can do.)

I have to remain cautious because, even if he truly thinks he saw her, it may still not have been she. Still, I am really, really excited because this is the first sighting since the day she went missing. I am not sure how to balance the caution and the hope, but I'll just let the hope energize my search. So tomorrow we will be out again but this time with renewed vigor. That extra energy will not be wasted: we still have lots and lots of places that need fliers, and the more we talk to people in the neighborhoods, the more likely people will watch out, the more likely someone will find her!

Tomorrow I, of course, plan to search the area between Eastern Market and Navy Yard. Still, there is a large part of Capitol South and the whole area from the hill itself back to our house that has no fliers at all yet. I figure we should meet at a place between the sightings and our home, then some people can go in one direction (away from home) and some in the other (back toward home). I will have looked and asked around Navy Yard earlier in the day, but we can still put up fliers and hand out business cards there. Let's meet at the exit of the Capitol South metro station, on the corner opposite Tortilla Coast. I will be there with Leah and lots of supplies. Please come, even if you come late or leave early or only have a little time to spare. I will have my phone with me, so you should be able to reach me any time.

I do have a request for a task before tomorrow's search: can someone help out by printing new fliers and business cards that include the web address of this blog? I still have fliers left without it and have been printing labels with the site on them and sticking them on the fliers and the back of the business cards, but as long as I will need more fliers anyway, it would be great if the blog site was already on there. Also, I want to put up some of the fliers that have the description as well. The ones with just the photo and number are better for places where people just pass by, but if businesses (like starbucks) let us post in there, people can get close enough (and stand still long enough) to see words as well. So can someone print both kinds of flyers (with and without the description as well as with and without tabs) with the blog site included? Ok - I'm off to put more labels on fliers and put them in sheet protectors so I will have plenty ready for tomorrow.

Thank you and have a good night.
p.s. If you have asked me a question or asked me for something and I haven't gotten back to you, would you mind sending me a quick reminder email? I think I have gotten to everyone, but I want to make sure.

Let's Look for Livvie! - Flyer Party

Thank you to all of you who responded and offered to help. We have been able to contact lots and lots of people, which gives me hope! But unfortunately we still haven't gotten any word of new sightings. Especially in light of that, I want to look for her as much (as widely and as long) as possible today. I know many people still have work, but some have the day off for Veterans Day, so I am organizing our first real search party:

When - flexible - it's all-livvie-all-the-time for me! you are welcome to join whenever you can. I will be out, I hope, by about noon and probably won't come home until after dark. (Also, I will have more search parties in the days to come, but I really want to start today - obviously, the sooner we find her, the better.)

Where - everywhere from our house (Chinatown/Mt. Vernon Square) to Eastern Market and even a bit beyond. Whenever you can come, call me on my cell phone and I'll meet you somewhere to give you fliers and business cards and tell you where we need you to go. I will print maps based on the tracker's suggestions and divide up the search area.

What to bring -
-your dog (if you have one and can bring him/her)
-strong clear tape. someone suggested a staple gun, and that's fine, but every place I found to put up a poster was a lamppost or something else metal, so tape is probably best.
-a slip lead (if you have one; otherwise, a normal leash is fine)
-tasty dog treats with a strong smell and maybe some dog food. She's not very food-motivated, but it certainly can't hurt and she may be really hungry.
-a map. The map from tracker is available HERE If you can, please print this or some other reasonably detailed map of the area. I will bring maps, but I'd rather have too many (or leftovers for future searches) than not enough.
-your phone. This is the only means of communication I will have while we're out - I don't have a smart phone so email isn't an option for me. As you doubtless know by now, my number is (617) 947-5627. I have some of your phone numbers, but if you want to send me yours, I can put your name and number in my phone ahead of time.
-I am going to bring water or some other drink. Bring whatever you'll want.
-flyers and business cards. I spent much of last night getting fliers and business cards ready for posting/distribution. That said, I would love to have more, so please do email me if you can make some. I will send you updated fliers and business cards that include the blog address. Also, you all probably know this better than I do, but we also want to put them in sheet protectors to make them last longer and protect them from the rain. Several people have suggested putting them on a bright background so they will draw more attention. I don't want them to be too big because I think they will be torn down (and get no other attention), so I think I will opt for a second letter-sized sheet of paper, behind the actual flyer and outside the sheet protector, that's landscape-oriented (horizontal). This can serve as a bright background and can be taped up with the flyer itself. Again, I haven't done this before, so we'll see how it goes. I am also open to other suggestions.

I welcome the help of anyone who can come, so feel free to show up even if you only have a little bit of time. If you know ahead of time that you can come, I would appreciate an email so that I know about how many people we'll have (to divide up the area and bring enough posters). If you don't have time, though, don't worry - I'll bring as many posters as I can and there are plenty of places to search!

That's it for now. If you have other ideas, please post them, rather than emailing them to me, so other searchers will also see them as well. Thank you again for your help and I hope to see you soon!

My Foster Dog Olivia is Gone!!

I recently took in a foster-dog, a 90-lb. brindle English Mastiff named Olivia. She was very recently rescued and has been fought, bred, and abused. She is severely underweight, had several recent surgeries, and is generally in pretty rough shape. She wouldn't eat or drink for the first two days I had her and still wouldn't even take treats from me as of Monday. Her biggest challenge is that she is not socialized: she is afraid of humans (including me) and, because she was locked in a garage, basically everything in the outside world is new and scary to her. I have never cared for a more needy, vulnerable dog.

On Monday morning, as we were crossing Mass. Ave. (NW, DC), her harness came detached from her leash. (This is odd because she still makes me drag her out of the apartment by the harness, and the connection to the leash was strong enough not to come apart when I pulled her into the hall. Regardless, it came apart one way or another.) Once she realized she was off-leash, she started running, right out into traffic, and kept going. I chased her to the Capitol, and the Capitol Police followed her to the intersection of 11th and G SE, but then they lost her as well.

She's incredibly adept at dodging people, and she ran much longer and farther than I would have thought she could. Between the activity and her general anxiety, she is almost certainly hiding. She likes to hide in bushes; and, for a 90-lb. dog, she's pretty good at making herself invisible. She is not at all aggressive - when approached, she runs/backs away as much as possible, then just hides her face.

She was wearing a red-orange martingale collar and a black Easy-Walk harness. She had had my dog Leah's extra i.d. tag on her harness, but had gotten that off. (She's a veritable Houdini when it comes to getting out of collars and harnesses!) She did not have her own i.d. tag yet, so the only tag she has on is the one from her rabies vaccination. She probably has not lived here long enough to find her way back, but if you see her (or even just think you might have seen her), please call (617) 947-5627.

Please, please help me find this dog! Please post this somewhere (/everywhere!) and forward it to everyone you know, people or groups, in DC. I have already contacted lots of authorities, organizations, businesses, etc., but if you can think of anyone whom it might help to contact, please do send it - I'd much rather have people receive her information twice than risk their not receiving it at all. I would also appreciate any other suggestions for publicity or other ideas on how to find her.

Please let me know if you can do anything to help find lost Livvie!
Thank you so much!