Operation Save Slinky

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a cute little stray black and white dog running around a few blocks away from our house. A couple of days later, I saw her again. I stopped the car to see if she'd come to me, and she bolted in the other direction. A couple of days after that, she was in our front yard, but as soon as we went out the door, she went running. We went out to walk the dogs the next night, and we spotted her in a neighbor's front yard. She came right up to sniff Celtic, only to take off as soon as we tried to get near her. The entire walk we discussed how we might corral her, since we were so worried about her being hungry, being out in the elements, and being hit by a car. So many of the days we'd seen her, she was very near or even in the road. As we neared home, we were plotting how maybe we could get her to follow the dogs, since she seemed to like Celtic so much. Seconds later, Chad glanced over his shoulder and was startled to find that she was walking about 10 feet behind us! We stopped to see if she would come closer, but instead she quickly disappeared into the night. It was at that moment that we dubbed our little neighbor stray Slinky.

That was the first night we started leaving food out for Slinky. Each day, we saw her at least once, sometimes two or three times, often across north Iowa Street, which has lots of heavy truck traffic. Every time we came home we were so afraid we would find her lying on the side of the road after being hit, but every time we left the house we'd leave food out for her anyway. About the second day that I left a snack for her at lunch, I started getting nervous when I got nearer to home, since I hadn't spotted her on any of the blocks approaching our house. As I rounded the corner onto our street, I found Slinky standing in our driveway eating. She jumped when the garage door opened, but stood there cautiously and watched me as I pulled in. By the time I got out of the car, Slinky had disappeared. It was fascinating that she could always appear and disappear so quickly!

A couple of nights later the temperature was supposed to drop down below freezing. I was so worried that Slinky wouldn't survive the night. I left some dinner out for her, but she didn't come to get it before we went to bed. When I woke up, I ran to the door and her chicken scraps were gone, but I had no idea if she'd gotten them or if I'd lured a raccoon to our front steps. As I left for work, I scanned the neighborhood carefully and saw no sign of her, and then backed out of the driveway only to find her standing in our flower garden. I jumped out and grabbed the bread I'd just thrown down, threw her a piece, and watched frustratingly as she grabbed a bite and took off in the other direction. I jumped in the car and followed her, and made desperate hand signals to a neighbor who was out walking as Slinky approached her dog. Before she realized what I was saying, Slinky was gone again, halfway down the next block. I talked with the neighbor only to find that her family had been feeding and trying to capture Slinky as well. She said other people on her block had also made efforts to no avail. That night my next door neighbor also called to say she'd been trying to tame and capture this very smart, very wary little girl!

Yesterday morning, as Chad headed out of the neighborhood, he called and said Slinky was right in front of a building on the edge of the industrial area near our house. He's stopped and tried to lure her in, but of course she took off. He came back to the house to grab the dogs (our bait) and we drove back to the industrial area and started our search. We drove through several parking lots and saw nothing, and just as we were about to head for home we saw her walking out of the K-Mart distribution center lot. We parked and jumped out of the car with the dogs and some tasty ham, and tossed Slinky a few pieces as she approached her fellow canines. As soon as I moved, however, she took off into a lot where TWO semis were trying to back into their respective stalls. We watched in horror as she actually walked under one of the trucks while it was moving, thankfully very slowly!

We followed Slinky through this lot of parked trucks and watched her slip through a hole in a fence--she was clearly very familiar with the area. She marched over to an office building and laid down, cleaning her wet and muddy paws and rolling around in the grass trying to dry off from the recent sprinkles. We jumped back into the car and drove to this lot, where we parked at a safe distance, trying to figure out our next move. Finally, I got out and walked to one end of the lot while Chad drove the dogs to the other end. We were hoping to herd her in my direction so that I could catch her as she went by. Chad got out with Celtic (Hope gets much to crazy around new dogs) and they started walking near Slinky, but then quickly walked away from her, which definitely piqued her interest. She followed, then sniffed with Celtic for a moment, unfortunately just out of Chad's reach. As soon as he made a move near her, she started jogging away. At this point it was sprinkling again, so we decided to give up our chase for the day.

We left food out again overnight, this time not as worried about the weather since she'd made it through two freezing nights and one rainy night with no problem. Today as I left for the shelter at about 1:00, Slinky was sitting on the corner of Iowa and River Ridge right in front of the inconvenience store. She started rolling around in the grass like she didn't have a care in the world, apparently completely unaware that she was lost or in danger at all. I pulled into the parking lot, knowing that I hadn't a chance in the world of catching her, but as soon as I stopped the car in her vicinity she took off across the road, prancing along like she was just out for a morning romp. I had to laugh because she was just so adorable!

Later this evening, Chad and I were downstairs watching the Jayhawks game against USC (which we'd recorded since we weren't home to watch it earlier). Suddenly Hope jumped off the couch and tore up the stairs, because she heard Celtic barking at something outside. She was going crazy with her hysterical bawling, so I ran up to see a little black and white body slinking around the corner. Chad jumped into action (since I was wearing slippers) and got Celtic's leash on and walked out the door. As he left I suggested that he try and lure her into the backyard. Hope and I stood and watched out the front door, and a few minutes later Slinky came walking back into our view, stopped a moment, and then took off around the corner again. I stepped out to follow her, not knowing if Chad realized where she was. As I rounded the corner I saw her standing in our neighbor's backyard, so I started to slowly approach with some treats. Suddenly, Chad walks out of the back yard gate and takes a few steps towards her with Celtic, then turns around and runs right back in through the gate, and she followed! I started to run to close the gate behind him, but he was already on top of it. When I heard the gate slam behind him I literally started screaming, "I can't believe it!! You did it!" I was so thrilled!! My husband is my hero!

It took about another 2o minutes of chasing her around the backyard in the freezing cold darkness with flashlights until we finally cornered her and got a leash on. She was so terrified, but even in her scared state she never tried to bite, even with strange people grabbing at her. The weird thing was when we went to put the leash on her, we noticed she was wearing a collar, which we're almost sure she wasn't wearing when we chased her yesterday. It's almost as if someone else finally caught her today and then lost her again. Regardless, in the few hours she's been with us, she's already doing better with walking on a leash and even coming back to us when we let her off in the backyard. She is still very scared and will need a lot of work before being adoptable, which is why one of the other neighbors wants to keep and train/socialize her before finding her a permanent home.

So tonight we have a very timid little visitor sleeping with her own little blankets in the warmth of our garage. Operation Save Slinky has been a success!