Steve

A difficult dog to catch

Steve was a challenging dog to capture.  He came from California, where he had been in a foster home.  He lived there with a couple of other pugs that he liked.  He escaped from a new foster home in Everett on January 21st.  He was very skittish and avoiding people.

Tino and I searched for Steve on the 22nd.  We followed the scent to a trailer park just north of the point of escape.  I think we were very close to Steve, but he was moving around the individual mobile homes, and we couldn’t just run through everyone’s back yards in the dark.  Also, there was a swampy forest, or a forested swamp behind the mobile homes.  We found other scent trails looping out through the neighborhood, but they all returned to the mobile home park, where the scent was the strongest.

We advised the rescue that brought Steve to Washington of all the steps they could be taking to find him.  He was posted on social media, and a few signs were put up, although the signs were too few and too small.

Steve was seen again 12 blocks east of the point of escape.  Reportedly, Steve was 18 pounds, but looking at him, I would have guessed he was more like 12 pounds.  Steve is small and quick, and used to living on the streets.  Small dogs on the run often learn to use fences to escape people who are trying to catch them.  They can go under or around a fence, and usually discourage a pursuer.  Dogs on the run also tend to like mobile home parks because they can easily dash from one unit to the next, and a person trying to catch the dog would probably not feel comfortable just running through the personal space of each mobile home.  Also, it’s common for someone in a mobile home park to be feeding outdoor cats, which is a source of food for a lost dog.  Steve was seen running around this mobile home park, 12 blocks east of the escape point, for about 10 days.

All of the volunteers eventually learned the numbering system of the mobile home park, and we could say, Steve ran from 114 to 332 and everyone would know what we were talking about.  At one point, the foster from California flew up for a few days to look for Steve.  She was clearly instructed to not call Steve’s name, but when she saw Steve in the mobile home park, she did call his name, just out of instinct or reflex, and Steve ran from her.  It’s perfectly understandable that she called his name, because most people would, but we have found it can have a harmful effect in these types of situations.  She left articles of her clothing near the traps and the wildlife cameras, and this seemed to help Steve stick around.

We set humane traps and wildlife cameras at several points in the park, but Steve never got too close to a trap.  He had been trapped previously, in California, so he knew to avoid a regular trap.  We brought in the big trap, 10 feet long, 6 feet high, and 5 feet wide.  It doesn’t really look too much like a trap to most dogs.  We set it up in the back yard of a particular mobile home, where he had been seen.  Steve came close, but didn’t go in.

After more than a week in the mobile home park 12 blocks east of the escape, Steve started generating sighting reports in the mobile home park just north of the point of escape.  I believe February 6th was the day he returned to the mobile home park near 4th Ave SW and SW 112th Street, near the point of escape.  He stayed in that area until his capture.  Steve seemed to have a pattern where he liked to run into and out of the mobile home park and by the State Farm office.  We set up a couple of cameras, and eventually had 4 cameras watching him.  We set up the very large trap just south of the mobile home park, in a field, along his usual route.

We have thousands of pictures of Steve running past the wildlife cameras and stopping for food now and then.  The large trap has a light beam at the end farthest from the door, and when a dog breaks the light beam while going after some food, it releases the door, which is held by an electromagnet.  We have had some dogs escape the trap, by climbing out the top, digging under the edge, or forcing the door out of the frame.  We wanted to only trap Steve if we were nearby to get there quickly and keep him from escaping the trap.  We have hundreds of pictures of Steve going into the trap part way, but not far enough to trigger the light beam over the food, which would release the magnet and let the door swing closed.  Time after time, the team watched the wildlife cameras as he went in the trap, but not far enough.  Then we would need to leave, and we would secure the door open so it wouldn’t trap him when no one was standing by.

In the three weeks that Steve was on the run in south Everett, five traps and four wildlife cameras were deployed.  40 large, bright signs, made by Useless Bay Sanctuary volunteers, were put out in the area, which generated the sightings we needed to keep track of his travels.  He traveled from 6th Ave SW to about 8th Ave SE, and from SW 107th Street to SE 116th Street, and area of about two square miles.  During the three week effort to catch Steve, dozens of volunteers invested hundreds of hours.  Dina led the effort, even though she was working two jobs and more than 70 hours per week.  Steve’s team consisted of Dina, Judy, Karen, Kari, Ken, Susan, Becca, Kylee, Dori, Roni, James, LaVonne, Terri,  Brad, Shelley, and probably several others that I have inadvertently left out.  Local residents helped in the search, and allowed us to go through their property.  Volunteers came from Lake Goodwin, Machias, Snoqualmie, and Burien.  Tino the search dog tracked Steve for several hours.  Conservatively estimating the volunteers hours at 1,000, at the average hourly wage for the Seattle area of $35, that’s maybe $35,000 of hard labor invested in the recovery of Steve.  The trap we eventually caught him in, provided at no charge by Useless Bay Sanctuary, a nonprofit for stray dogs, cost more than $2,000 to build, modify, and maintain.  The 40 large signs, provided by UBS, cost around $10 each to make.  If Steve the Pug would have had to pay for all of the effort that went into capturing him, out of his own pocket, it probably would have amounted to $40,000, for a tiny little stubborn dog.  The cost of a GPS tracker would have been a bargain, if one had been put on him before he escaped.

On Thursday night, the 10th, we were waiting for Steve to come to the trap, and two Huskies went in and were trapped.  We hoped someone would come looking for them, but no one did.  We couldn’t just let them out, because what if they were lost?  We made friends with them, feeding them Vienna sausage, and eventually I went into the trap with them to try to put leashes on.  Dina and I walked them around the neighborhood, hoping they would lead us to their home.  They did not.  We had no place to take them, and I couldn’t just turn them loose, so I started knocking on doors at 11 PM to see if anyone knew where the dogs belonged.  Eventually, we found someone who knew the owner, and we got the dogs back to them.  The owners weren’t even looking for the dogs.  That ruined that night for catching Steve, and we secured the trap door open and left.

On the night of Steve’s capture, Super Bowl Sunday, he started showing up on cameras at 7:21 PM.  At 7:28, he went into the large trap far enough to trigger the light beam, but it wasn’t set to shut because volunteers weren’t there yet.  They were just minutes away.  After Steve had a few bites to eat, and wandered off again, Susan set the trap and refreshed the bait.  Steve had pizza and chicken and kibble and cat food to choose from.  Once the trap was set to close, and volunteers were standing by to get there quickly, Steve made us all wait until 10:40.  I’m surprised we didn’t crash a server as half a dozen volunteers continuously refreshed the page with images from the cameras.  He checked it out and wandered around the trap, going part way in at times, for another 24 minutes.  Susan was stationed 120 feet south of the trap, watching with her night vision binoculars and refreshing the app for the wildlife cameras.  Roni and I were about 60 feet north of the trap, on the other side of a mobile home, watching the action on the wildlife cameras.  At 11:04 Susan heard the door of the trap clang shut, and the metal chain for the metal block that sticks to the electromagnet rattled against the closed door with its distinctive sound.  Susan began running toward the trap and messaged us, Trapped.  I saw her message before the camera image transmitted, and I started running to the trap.  When I got to the trap, Susan was by the door, guarding it, and Steve was right near the door, on the inside, trying to figure out a way to escape.  Roni came up with her very bright flashlight, and we discussed how to go in and get him, inside the 10-foot long trap, without him squeezing out the door.  If he were to escape from this situation, we probably never would catch him.

As Susan and Roni kept watch on Steve, I went and got the folding trap. The plan was to squeeze in, opening the door just enough for a person and the trap in its narrow folded configuration.  Steve was just waiting for us to try something like that, preparing to squeeze through a little gap.  Roni was able to reach her fingers through the wire grid and grab his harness.  She took a slip lead and passed it under his harness to hold him.  She had him securely, but he was too close to the door for us to open it.  Roni had to work the leash away from the door, one grid square at a time, pushing the leash through each subsequent space until she finally had him secured a couple of feet from the door.  She held him tight as Susan and I squeezed in with the trap.  Once we got it unfolded and set up, Susan took Steve’s leash while Roni went and got a blanket.  We lined the trap with it and got Steve in, secure.  Before opening the large trap to carry Steve out in the smaller trap, I secured the smaller trap with about ten zip ties to make sure it couldn’t pop open if we dropped it or something.  No way were we going to lose this dog again, since he was so hard to capture.

Steve was one of the most difficult dogs we have ever caught.  Just prior to Steve, two other dogs, Mieke and Sam, had died just before we were able to catch them.  Mieke was taken by coyotes and Sam was hit by a car.  We were very close to catching those dogs, but their luck ran out.  I had been worried that, after 3 weeks of effort, Steve might be hit by a car or taken by coyotes just before we could catch him.  The swampy woods where he liked to hang out were known to have coyotes.  People had witnessed him almost being struck by a car.  Steve is very lucky that he survived for three weeks, and he is fortunate that more than a dozen volunteers were willing to miss sleep while trying to catch him.  I’m sure he will have a happy life in a home that will take precautions to be certain he never escapes again.  (Please let me know if you are interested in adopting Steve.)

Steve, if you ever escape again, don’t call me.