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!