Not a Cat This Time

With baited breath I approached the trap I set up before dusk last night. The grass crunches under my feet. Bitter wind blows at my back. An ice storm with temperatures as low as 18°F had set in overnight. I am praying that the trap will be occupied so I can get the poor critter some help.

This time I’m not trapping a cat. I was alerted to an emergency issue concerning a Papillon. She is 10 years old, she is fragile, unfortunately, she is thin and worse than that four days ago when she bolted out their back gate, they had just trimmed her because she was matted.

I met the lady looking for her in lieu of the owner who is elderly yesterday. She had knocked on my door and handed me a flyer of this beautiful dog asking if I had seen her. I was told that she was seeing three doors down from my house. Her owner lives directly behind my house. When they were trying to retrieve her to get her back home, she headed straight from my place. Unfortunately, between my place and her home stands a lot of blackberry thickets. Her name is Luna. Marion has had Luna for 10 years. Luna has never left the property. They believe that she is altered somehow. (My guess after listening to her symptoms is she has had a stroke.)

I finally reached the trap, which I had set in the corner of my front yard out of the wind as much as possible. There is nothing inside and my heart sinks.

When it gets this cold, the predators come down from the hills, looking for food and water that’s not frozen. Such a tiny dog who is afraid of her own shadow, doesn’t like dogs, doesn’t like cats, and runs from people, is probably pretty easy prey for predators who are hungry and cold.

She has been seen on the highway quite near my home. Several of my neighbors have tried to catch her, but she is not catchable. That’s why I set up the trap. I wanted to go outside last night so many times to see if she was there, but it was so icy. I was afraid I was going to fall. I can’t fall again. I can’t risk it.

I just heard that the owner wants to give up. She is very distraught. She is also not very healthy and she can’t go looking at her own for her dog. Her dog is very accustomed to her voice and no one else’s. I told her when I heard the news that I would not give up I will keep the trap going. Who knows maybe I’ll even catch one of the five strays. If that happens, I can get the stray cat in and get him or her fixed. I almost wish that in the mornings when I look up and down the highway that I see her on the road because at least then the owner has closure. The dog isn’t stuck somewhere unable to get out of the thicket where they suspect she’s hiding. Or maybe just to old and tired to care about moving at all.

Who knows, tomorrow when the sun comes out, she might just show up and go inside the cage to eat the food that’s offered to her there. That would be a wonderful miracle.