Legacies

(PLEASE NOTE: The latest "new" post just precedes this one...I posted it the same day as this, but this is a post that I had discovered lying unfinished in the draft folder, so although it's old news, I'm publishing it belatedly. The NEW news is the next entry.)

Ella has not given me a lot of pups over the course of her reproductive career, but the ones she has given me have been consistent in their innate talent for tracking...they follow their noses from Day One and some have proven their particular talent for Search and Rescue. Ella's little girl who was featured in January's blog (see photo in last entry) is now a chunky little four-month-old named Elan who can hardly tear her nose from the ground. The snapshot above was taken when she was about ten weeks old...pretty typically showing her zipping around vacuuming scent.

Another of Ella's kids got himself in trouble recently, but ultimately (spoiler alert) independently resolved his dilemma on his own by using that family specialty - his nose. That, and an impressive measure of smarts!

Some of you who follow Facebook may have read of Zhen's travails. It started on a Friday night, when his new owners (who'd had him only a few weeks) went to visit friends in Clarks Summit. Zhen was new to it all, the "Big City" (he's a country bumpkin!), the friends, the new owners. When his new owners left to go pick something up, they thought he'd wait patiently for their return. Wrong-o! Zhen had PTSD flashbacks to his recent uprooting from Hollow Hills and decided he wasn't letting these new folks get away from him...he determined to go looking for them on his own. They returned a short while later to discover that Zhen had bolted past the host as he opened a door, and in that moment Zhen became a dog on the lam.

His new owners contacted me after their own initial efforts proved fruitless, and with unfounded confidence I joined the search. With Ella, Zhen's mom, along, we trudged miles through the neighborhoods, in the rain, calling and trying to deliberately leave a scent trail in a circumference that would capture Zhen's nose and guide him back to the place he had last seen his people. Optimism waned as one day became two, then three. Residents of Clarks Summit proved their affection for dogs, as calls came in at all hours, mostly with versions of "he was just here" that were torturous to us searchers. The sitings did establish a pattern, though, and it was obvious Zehn had set himself up a bivouac that revealed great instincts and/or thinking on his part. Woods in the middle of town provided shelter, ponds provided water, and nearby Baptist Bible provided lots of students which meant potential food sources. But he'd been spooked by too many pursuits, too many scary close calls with automobiles and other dogs, and he wasn't taking any chances, not even when familiar voices and smells were close at hand. Nothing we did convinced him to reveal himself.

But, eventually, it was his choice that brought him home. That, and the innate tracking abilities his family tree has given him. He decided he had to go back to find his way forward, and simply presented himself to his new folks right at their doorstep!