Monday, October 31, 2011

What About BOB? - Part 2

It didn't take too long for Bob to find a foster home. One of amazing dog volunteers stepped up saying she would give him a try. She picked him up after he got neutered and he settled right in with just a few little bumps in the road. He really enjoyed her two dogs and started to really relax away from the shelter. 




In fact, he was doing so well, his Foster Mom brought him to the shelter one Saturday morning to talk him up and try to find him a new home. As if by magic, a boy and his dad fell in love with him on the spot! They wanted to adopt him right away! Of course, we took pictures!





To ease the transition for Bob, his Foster Mom Margot met them at a local Petco. Here is the report of how things went: 



I really liked how confident Bob walked around in the store with his new dad and I felt good about the adoption, it even made me stop crying. Bob did not even pull the leash to go with me when I left. About an hour or two later, I received the horrible call that Bob had jumped off the 2nd story balcony and ran into the woods next to his complex. I drove over there and we started walking in the woods, calling Bob's name constantly. The dad's son needed to get out of the heat after an hour but I stayed and walked around all afternoon and tried to go in all kinds of directions, until it got dark.

It was at that point that the incredible team of dog volunteers went into ACTION. Using Yahoo groups and Google docs to stay in touch with each other, posters were hung all over the area, a craigslist ad was posted, the local home owners group was contacted and at least 4 times a day a volunteer would track around where he had been seen last. It seemed he was traveling far distances across the green belt, he was spotted all over the place. The volunteers even checked the homeless camps in the greenbelt, begging anyone to keep an eye out for Bob. 

Over a week went by and the sightings continued. Volunteers were leaving food and water out where they thought he would be. After all this time, drastic measures had to be taken. They decided they would set a humane trap for Bob. He was getting hungry - someone had seen him eating birdseed! So they felt sure with a stinky enough morsel of food, they could lure him into the trap. 

Again, four times a day, volunteers were checking the trap. In the hot Texas heat, if he DID get trapped, he could overheat very easily, even though the trap was covered and in the shade and had water waiting for him, it could still be very dangerous. Volunteers were still fielding calls and e-mails about "Bob sightings" - what an amazing group of folks!

And all their work paid off - exactly TWO weeks after he escaped - Bob was trapped!


He was transported back to the shelter - hungry, filthy and exhausted, Bob had been found and was safe at the shelter.



But of course, that was not the end of the story . . .  

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