Tracking in Margaritaville

Lynn Byrd, July 28, 2023

I’m in it for the dog.

These words serve to remind me to stay focused when mean drama pushes me to my emotional limit during a supercharged track. This one sentence was my mantra for the eleven days I tracked Margarita, a four-pound Chihuahua with forty pounds of attitude and a fan base rivaling Honey Boo Boo’s.

To be fair, Margarita caused the drama in the first place. She escaped from the back yard of her experienced foster’s home late one Sunday afternoon near the western edge of Forsyth County and ran like her fur was on fire, then bolted up a heavily-traveled spur connecting two very busy roads. Traffic stopped as well-meaning people jumped from their cars, then chased and yelled while trying to catch her. These desperate actions pushed Margarita further away from home, across a fast four-lane, and toward the interstate bridge.

And then she vanished.

When my tracking buddy Stacy Gang and I met Margarita’s foster mom, Ashley, shortly after sunrise Monday morning, the path was cold. There had been no reported sightings of a little white dog. We didn’t think she crossed the interstate bridge, but we looked on the other side anyway, and then we walked for a few hours until we became familiar with the neighborhood closest to Ashley’s home. We walked until there was nothing left to do on the ground but wait for a sighting. Meanwhile, Ashley’s labor-intensive background work of making, hanging, and distributing road posters and flyers was about to begin in earnest.

Community sightings are a tracker’s way of extending her vision, awareness, and reach. Reported sightings allow me to get ahead of the dog by using the data that shows and tells me the time she was seen, the exact location she was seen, and the direction she was heading. Sightings are one of the most helpful ways to help a person reunite with their beloved pet and are most helpful when reported right away.

The quickest way to generate sightings? Road posters and flyers.

Margarita found a soft place to land Tuesday morning which generated our first reported sighting. As Ms. Green sat on her back patio at 10:30am enjoying a cup of coffee, a little white dog walked up her back sidewalk, then stopped by the chicken coop to see what she could see. Margarita might have stayed there had she not been spooked by Mr. Green – who called out and walked toward her, serving only to push her away once more. Yikes! Oh, no!

But, wait.

Did this “mistake” provide an unexpected assist? We began to think of Mr. Green as our Divine Defensive End whose one job had been to push Margarita away from the busy road in front of his house and toward a safe haven of deeply shaded yards across the way. As we discussed it, we became convinced that Mr. Green may have inadvertently saved her life that day.

The little white dog found hidey holes in a neighborhood whose generous and kind people began to trust that Team Margarita wasn’t code for a group of reckless women out to break into their homes and raid their liquor cabinets. We began to learn each other’s names. Lynette, Rick, Allen, Susie, Hugh, Melinda, Cecil, Hope, Mikala and many others opened their hearts and their yards to us, and began to watch for our traveling girl.

Margarita didn’t care about any of that. Nor did she care about the bullying and disrespect dished out by a few members of a local rescue who incessantly put our track at risk by challenging the process, refusing instruction, and disrupting movements. At their best, disruptions keep a lost animal in peril longer than necessary. At their worst, the beloved doesn’t make it home.

It’s necessary to follow the tracker’s directions, even when they make no sense to you. Why? Because we understand the unusual behaviors of stressed and fearful pets when they’re lost. As a tracker, I take direction from the dog (or cat, or horse). I am working on her behalf. I am her voice.

I’m in it for the dog.

Once the bullies were sent to the bench, we found our rhythm. Stacy, Ashley, and I became a core team of three on the ground, plus Ashley and I were both using social media – Ashley kept Facebook and the rescue group informed, and I worked with the home owner’s association to spread the word. Margarita, or Tiny Bone as she was nicknamed by my husband, was traveling through an expansive neighborhood filled with beautiful lakes and ponds, and back yards suitable to provide cover for a little white dog whose superpower was invisibility.

Regardless of our commitment to finding Margarita, very few sightings had been reported, and there was no pattern to her movements. She had yet to be seen at the same place more than once, or at the same time of day. I couldn’t position the cameras or set up a food station or a trap until her movements became consistent. The longer we went without sightings, the more challenging the track became.

On these long days of sitting and waiting, studying maps, building relationship and working with Nature’s schedule (5:30am until 10am, and 5:30pm until dusk), we learned that Margarita, a certified little bad ass of a Chihuahua, could climb 8’ chain link fences, shimmy under and through gates, run faster than a Greyhound and jump higher than the cow over the moon when she had to. We also learned that she had been chased further afield by a neighbor’s dog early one morning and went into hiding in a part of the neighborhood that took her perilously close to the busy road she crossed during her escape.

After a day with no sightings and a night with no pressure, Margarita did exactly as predicted. She circled back to her most highly traveled area – a path in the woods where the mama deer left their fawns to nap while they had tea with their friends. Now, our job became one of patience. We had to give her space and time to feel safe enough to stick around.

We were on Dog Time, not People Time.

That’s when the neighborhood sprang into action by reporting current sightings, and by posting twice-daily updates on their HOA page. That’s when we all started to sync up and work together on behalf of the little white dog. That’s when the angels begin to spread their wings, and that’s when were finally able to determine the ideal location for Margarita’s food station, and where exactly to set the traps.

We were getting close, we could feel it. She was getting tired of eating deer poop, and she was ready for a soft bed.

On Day Ten, we had gathered enough intel to set up Camp Margaritaville and offer three trap-loaded buffets for Tiny Bone’s dining pleasure. She could go for Door Number One, Two, or Three. Make the deal, Little Girl! Multiple cameras, too. Same shot, different angle. Yes, Margarita, your tail looked good in all of them.

That night, Ashley and I crashed out in our cars for a few hours and waited for Margarita. But, she stood us up. We emptied the food stations, closed the traps at 10:15pm, and headed home. Why did we close the traps? Experience has taught me to never leave food out overnight because it can set up a dangerous scenario, especially for small animals. Imagine four-pound Margarita fighting off a mature male raccoon who also wanted the food we had set for her. It wouldn’t bode well for our girl. She’d be on the losing end of that fight. I close my traps at night for exactly that reason.

But when the stars and personnel align, I’ll make a rare exception.

On Day Eleven, I left the house at 5:30am to meet Stacy at Margaritaville. Our plan was to set fresh, hot, smelly food in the traps, make sure the cameras had enough juice and were in the proper locations, and then skedaddle. Margarita had made it clear that she wasn’t coming out if she could see us. It was now up to us to give her all the space she needed, and up to her to take it.

Classical music from WDAV filled the air around me, and I began singing Margarita home, making up the words to suit the movement. I just knew we were getting her that morning. While having coffee at a nearby shop, with cameras reporting every breeze and flicker to me in real time, Stacy and I placed our bets on Margarita’s timing. I took 7:30am, Stacy took 8am.  We waited. We saw birds on camera. We saw deer. We saw Bigfoot and a snake and a penguin. But we didn’t see that elusive little shapeshifting dog.

Not. One. Sighting.

We called the track at 11am because it was hot, and nothing was moving, not even the leaves. All the creatures were hunkered down, and we took their cue and rested, too.

Early that evening, my focus shifted. I planned to stay up all night and watch the cameras from my phone. Margarita had begun to show up in the wee hours, and it was time to consider the Hail Mary of Rare Exceptions: the open trap. Ashley was on call in case a raccoon or other creature needed to be released, as she was five short minutes away from Margaritaville.  My really great husband rode along and helped me reconfigure the three traps and two cameras. The food lure wafted the hot scent of chicken and pork fried in bacon grease into the heavy summer-night air. We rearranged Margaritaville to suit our little diva, then left the scene about 8:30pm.

A familiar calm washed through me as Jamie and I walked our dogs a little later that evening. I anticipated nothing, expected nothing and was fully aware that nothing was exactly what I was getting. I took the phone from my pocket and asked it to make noise. HAH! Well, what do you know? The Spypoint camera notification popped up right away.

And right away, on the eleventh night at 9:23pm, Margarita chose Door Number 2! She chose the trap with the just-right porridge! We had her!

Jamie was outside undressing the dogs and heard me whooping it up in the living room. Ashley was in her car within two minutes, and Margarita was inside Ashley’s home and out of the trap by 9:32pm. (Tracker Rule: never take the dog out of the trap until you have carried the trap with the dog in it into your home. Make sure all doors are secure before releasing the dog.)

Ashley and Margarita were eyeball to eyeball three times in eleven days. The first time, Margarita growled at Ashley and ran away. The second time, Margarita barked at Ashley and ran away. The third time, Margarita sang to Ashley and licked tears of joy from Ashley’s face.

It’s over! Margarita of Meadowbrook is safe! Now, we rest.

Night Eleven, 10:38pm: I’m on the phone with a desperate young woman whose beloved dog is missing.