ELLA

April 27, 2022

If was as if Prince dressed Wednesday’s dawn sky in every shade of purple he ever wore. Scent hounds Willow and Ivy lifted their wet noses to sniff the buzz of the waking day. Stacy Gang and I were reading a map guided by planets and stars and readying ourselves for the second round of a track we had called off the day before.

Three days earlier on a Sunday afternoon, something happened that caused Ella to leave her yard and run like her hair was on fire. She ran hard and fast and many people saw her streaking through their yards. Ella made it safely across Five Points, an intersection of five very heavily traveled roads two miles from her home, but the driver who called in the sighting lost her in his rear view mirror and couldn’t tell us which direction she was heading.

After two productive hours of pounding hard pavement under a hot sun on Tuesday afternoon, Willow and Ivy had done enough. The heat made an oven of the roads and there was no cover. If we asked too much of the dogs, we could cause them to dehydrate, or to become foot-sore. No way!

We had started Tuesday’s track at the last place Emma was spotted, and Stacy and I were satisfied that Willow and Ivy had shown us Ella’s direction, but when we ended the track for the day at a hellishly hot and busy intersection, we were left with unanswered questions.

When Ella reached that intersection, did she go left toward the hospital, or did she go right toward the apartment construction, or did she run across the road and go straight up the steep hill? Willow and Ivy wasted little time answering that question for us Wednesday morning.

Curious early commuters spotted two unusual-looking women walking in their neighborhood, one who was long-lining two large hounds. Traffic slowed. Savvy drivers waved us across every intersection as the confident tracking dogs took us straight up the steep hill. They showed us where Ella had pooped earlier and where she had meandered behind a house at the next corner. Then, the girls turned right and led us past the new apartment scald and down toward the wooded park, and eventually to the creek path behind the recreation center.

The dogs stopped suddenly, put their noses in the air, and began to double back. Ella had been on the creek bottom, but chances are good that she saw “scary” people and dogs there, and turned and ran the way she came.

Ivy and Willow doubled back toward the apartments and turned left at the top of the hill. They followed Ella’s scent toward one of the most heavily traveled roads in town and led us to the railroad crossing across from Thruway, a local shopping mecca.

Stacy and I looked at each other and shook our heads. It was not safe for Ella or for our tracking team to continue. Just the sight of us could cause Ella to run into traffic and be injured, or worse. We knew it was not worth the risk; best to stop. Willow and Ivy had given us solid direction, and now it was time to practice patience and wait for a reported sighting.

We didn’t wait long! Stacy was on her way home with her girls, and my husband and I were walking our three dogs when my phone rang. A veterinarian reported seeing Ella in their office parking lot at 7am, less than a quarter mile from where we stopped the track at 7:30am, for safety reasons. The vet said Ella was nervous when approached and that she ran behind a row of nearby stores, then quickly disappeared from sight.

Sometimes, one current sighting is all a tracker needs. One sighting, plus a peaceful tracking environment, plus morning planets to align in Ella’s favor, plus cool heads and open hearts in everyone we meet along the way.

A big ask. But doable.

I made two quick calls. Stacy left the dogs at home and met me to track Ella on foot. Ella’s person Elizabeth left work and looped around her neighborhood, scattering dirty clothes in case Ella was heading toward home.

Ella just needed to show up for us. But, where would that be? How far could she safely travel from what we thought to be her current location – a crazy busy stretch of commercial road with heavy traffic all day long? Home was only a mile away, and if she found a place to hide during the day where she felt no pressure, she might just rest until nightfall and make the last leg of her journey in the wee hours.

We couldn’t count on that.

While Elizabeth worked the track from her neighborhood, Stacy and I meticulously walked the long privacy fence line behind the large commercial properties near the veterinary office. We were looking specifically for a way Ella might have gotten under the fence, which meant she could be headed away from the road and busy stores and parking lots into a much safer bordering neighborhood.

Then, I saw her.

A very large white Doodle, Ella made herself so small and quiet that I almost missed her. She saw me see her, and I quickly looked away. No pressure! In that brief exchange, Ella’s alert, dark brown eyes projected fear and exhaustion. She was at the end of the run, hiding in the ninety-degree angle where two fences come together, hunkered down as flat as a pressed linen napkin, not ten feet from the loading dock of a busy auto parts store.

I took Stacy’s arm and whirled our bodies into a fluid pas de deux away from Ella’s space. We walked back to my car and opened all the doors, should Ella have decided to jump in on her own. I gathered the scent items, treats, and water, and then I gathered myself by taking a few calming breaths and calling in my guides to protect us.

Stacy took a seat on the pavement several yards away and up the hill from Ella’s camp. She explained to the many drivers and onlookers what was happening down below and why we needed them to stay back, to please help us by parking in another part of the lot. From that point forward, Stacy rode point as the ambassador/coach of the rescue effort so I could concentrate on Ella.

Stacy had Ella’s back, and mine.

I lowered my energy, and walked slowly and indirectly, yet nearer to Ella without making eye contact with her or putting pressure on her. I sat down about twenty feet away, showed Ella my profile and yawned, jingled my keys, and tossed in her direction the socks, t-shirt, and shorts that smelled like Elizabeth, the person Ella loved more than anyone in the world.

Then the magic happened. Three auto parts employees who wandered out for a smoke break honored my request to stay away from the loading dock for twenty minutes. Simultaneously, a friend of Elizabeth’s who Ella knew and trusted showed up, sat near Stacy and willingly took Stacy’s direction. This person was proxy until Elizabeth could get to her beloved companion.

Shortly before the twenty-minute window closed, and with the impatient auto parts store supervisor watching from the dock’s open door, Ella stood and limped on tender paws to sniff her person’s clothes. She trusted that I wasn’t going to hurt her or rush her, and slowly made her way past me. Where was she going?

Please, baby. Stay close.

Ella stopped moving. She saw someone, and smelled someone. Someone in the distance who was familiar. Someone who was sitting still and low to the ground and not pressuring her in any way. I watched with relief as Ella recognized Elizabeth’s proxy, then broke into a tail-wagging, teetering, tender-pawed jog and fell into the friend’s lap. “Wrap your arms around her,” Stacy and I yelled. “Hold her tight!”

Elizabeth came in screeching hot a few moments later, so excited that she almost jumped out of her car before it came to a full stop. She calmed herself, accepted a few quick coaching tips, and was immediately rewarded with a beautiful and tearful reunion.

All of these little moments of detail and communication helped reunite a distraught dog owner with her beloved companion. To witness that moment is the essence of everything sacred in the whole wide world.

Later that afternoon, Ella was checked from nose to tail at her vet’s office. Other than four road-sore paws and a burst benign cyst on her side which very well may have caused her to bolt from home on Sunday afternoon, she was pronounced fine. After a few days of rest and several small meals of boiled chicken and rice, she returned to her beautiful, healthy self.

All is now well in Ella’s world. The girls are all right.

xol