Baya

She has had a rough life, and needs a great home.

Baya

Someone posted in the Lost Dogs of King County group on Facebook that an older dog had been seen wandering for a few days in Kent.  On April 5th, I went to the area to look for her, to see if I could help.  I had a bit of trouble finding the location where the picture of her was taken, but I could see it was near a forsythia.  After doing a grid search of several blocks in all directions, I finally found the forsythia that matched the photograph.  Just at that moment, the dog came trotting down the sidewalk.  I was able to get in front of her and get out of the car with a can of cat food.  I walked across her path, dropping globs of cat food in front of her.  I sat down on the sidewalk, and she followed the cat food globs right to me.  I used calming signals, to keep her from running away, and within a few minutes she was right next to me.  I slowly put my hand up under her chin, to see if she would let me pet her, but when I touched her, she startled and jumped back a foot.  I made a trail of cat food globs over to a grassy area, and I set up the humane trap.  It took me less than a minute.  I drove away, and she circled the trap, possibly getting ready to go in.

Then she started trotting away.  I followed her in my car.  A couple walked by, and I asked them if they knew where the dog lived.  They said they always see her making the same loop, and she had been wandering the neighborhood for 8 or 9 months.  I lost track of her in the twilight, so I moved ahead slowly until I saw her again.  She went right to a house with a lighted porch, and appeared to be eating from dishes.  A man came to the door when he saw my car at the curb.  I got out and went close enough to talk to him.  When he opened his glass door to talk to me, the dog slowly wandered off.  I asked him if it was his dog.  He said no, and had a look of, “Why do you want to know?”  I explained that the dog had been reported wandering the neighborhood and I was trying to help her.  He said, “I’ve been feeding her for two years.”  He pointed out that he had several cameras facing the front yard and the street, and he could see her when she came to get food every day.  I gave him my business card from Useless Bay Sanctuary and told him our mission is to help stray dogs like this.  I told him about my humane trap, and that I would like to set it up in his front yard, in front of his cameras, if that was okay with him. He said that was fine.  When I went back to the original location, several blocks away, to get the trap, she was circling it and looked like she would go in.  I drove past her, to the end of the dead end, and when I came back around, she was in it, trapped and safe.  When I approached the trap, she ignored me and just kept eating the cat food.

I loaded her into the back of my car, still inside the trap, and drove back to the man’s house.  When I got out of the car, he started to tell me that I could put the trap right in front of his front door, if I wanted to.  I told him it wouldn’t be necessary, and I opened the hatch of the car to show him that she had been caught.  He was very happy.  He had been trying to help her for years.  He had called animal control, but they hadn’t been able to catch her.  Several houses in the neighborhood had been feeding her.  I told him that I would let him know what happened with her and how she was doing.

Diane agreed to hold the girl overnight in her outdoor kennel.  Diane has held dozens of dogs for us over the years.  She has a secure and comfortable outdoor kennel, ideal for holding dogs safely overnight until we can figure out where they are going.  It seems that we catch the majority of stray dogs after the shelter has closed for the day.  Diane helped me carry her, in the trap, from the car to the kennel.  Once inside, with the door securely latched, I let her out.  She paced around in circles, coming close to me, but not necessarily wanting me to pet her.  She wanted to get out, get on the run, and keep moving, as she had been accustomed to doing for at least the past two years.  Eventually, she settled down enough so I could scan her with my microchip scanner.  The scanner beeped.  I got a number.

I contacted the microchip company, and they had information from the original owner.  She was adopted from the Auburn Valley Humane Society on June 18th, 2018.  They said her name was Baya.  She is 11 years old. They contacted the owner through two phone numbers and by email.  That registered owner never replied to any of the contacts.

The next day, Kari arranged with Diane to pick her up and foster her.  Baya has been doing well in her foster home, enjoying short walks on a leash. She likes to meet other dogs.  She has been to the vet for a general checkup and during a second visit she had cancer removed from her chest.  The doctors think they got it all and stopped it from spreading.  She also had 6 rotten teeth removed.  Those teeth must have been giving her a lot of pain.  She has impaired vision, although we aren’t sure how much she can see.  If she was nearly blind, that would explain the way she startled when I tried to pet her gently.  She has arthritis.  No doubt she will need veterinary care and a loving home from this point on.

A couple of weeks after I found her and reported her to the shelter, a man called me to say that Baya was his dog.  He saw the posting at the shelter web page.  I asked him more about her.  He said he found her four years ago.  I asked why she was seen wandering the neighborhood for years.  He said that’s just what she likes to do.  He said that no fence would hold her.  He said he bought the cheap grocery-store dog food for her because he couldn’t afford the good stuff.  He had never taken her to the vet, and didn’t plan to.  If we returned her to him, he was going to let her keep wandering the streets, with fading vision and hearing, and if she was hit by a car, oh well.  He seemed to view himself as her savior, as if finding her 4 years ago and never taking her to get her microchip scanned somehow counted as rescue.  He wanted her back, but he said, “If you think you can find a better home for her, then you go ahead and do that.” I told him I would get back to him.  This conversation was before her surgery and x-rays.

Baya is in a great foster home where she is happy and cared for, and safe.  UBS has spent $3,000 on her care, so far, saving her from cancer and alleviating her pain.  I’m quite certain we can find a great home for her, where she can live out her remaining years in the comfort and safety she deserves.  In any event, I can’t in good conscience return her to a man who has plainly stated he does not intend to take care of her, and isn’t even her rightful owner.

Baya is not very active, but she likes her short walks.  She needs a little help getting up and down stairs.  Somehow, she ended up in a shelter when she was six years old.  Then she was adopted by someone who is not bothering to respond to the microchip company’s attempts at contact.  Then she was found wandering by someone who has fed her for four years, which I suppose is a good thing, but who has no intention of keeping her off the streets or providing veterinary care.  Baya has not had an ideal life so far.  Humans have let her down. I’m betting we can find her a great home where she will live like royalty.  Please share this post so we can get her into that perfect family.