05/19/2023
Now that the adrenaline has worn off and the dust has settled, here is what I know of the "Airport Road Dog." First of all, her name is Tawny. She was newly adopted by a man who lives in Lyman, WY, but works the oil field somewhere in North Dakota. He works two weeks on, two weeks off, and was bringing her home for the first time in April 23rd, when he stopped at exit 111 outside of Rock Springs, WY. This is the exit for our airport, but it's a very small airport that only has one flight in and one flight out per day. The area gets a little traffic because it also has a road that leads to another small town about five miles up the road. Because this man had known Tawny a little (he adopted her from a coworker), he thought he would be okay to just let her out of the truck. She took off (spooked, chasing something, I don't know) and disappeared. Before he posted on our local missing page, another man posted saying he had seen a dog out there. It was a concern because this exit is a few miles outside of town, with no residences, so there is no reason for a dog to be there. A day later Tawny's human posted and we figured out they were the same dog.
Initially, she was at least being seen by people, even though she wouldn't come anywhere near enough to grab. There was also a man camping out there for work, who had seen her and was feeding her. We all converged on the area, and I don't know if that's what scared her the most, or if it was just that the area gets a little busy with people who pull off the road to sleep or run their dogs or whatever. Whatever the case may be, after the first two sightings she basically vanished. We knew she was out there because we were finding prints, but she had no interest in the kibble I put out, so she wasn't showing up on the camera. Eventually I put some rotisserie chicken out in a couple different areas around the central trapping area and she was picked up on camera. Since then it was a battle of trying to figure out her routine, where the heck she was going during the day, why she was skipping random nights, and why she wouldn't eat dog food. I guess whatever dead animals were out there tasted better. 🤷🏻♀️
First weekend attempt comes and goes with no sighting, second weekend comes and goes with no sightings again. Jill mentions maybe the area gets too busy during the weekend, so we regroup and think we will shoot for a Sunday night. Just when we think we have her figured out, she shows up in broad daylight on the camera! So we regrouped get again, and decided to shoot for Thursday night. Keep it low key, don't put any special food in the bowl, just act like any other night. And then we waited.
The notification came in at 11:20 PM and we saw her outside of the trap. I had it set to notify at every instance of the camera going off so we waited a couple minutes expecting to see a pic with her in the trap. Nothing came. Five minutes went by, then eight, then ten and I said we need to go up there. If we interrupt her we won't stop, we'll just keep driving, but I can't wait for another pic and discover she somehow escaped. We pulled up and sure enough - she was trapped! I think she had just stayed too far to the back and the camera didn't pick up her movements. My fault for bad camera placement.
Then came the adventure of getting the trap into Jill's SUV. 😂 Somehow we managed, but it took a minute. We tried to give her some time to relax to see if she would come out of the trap, but she was super scared, so Jill followed me to my house in Green River and we unloaded her in the trap, into my house. Once inside it was a different story. She was still very scared, but she came right out and right up to me. She let me pet her and after about 10 seconds she tried to crawl inside my skin. Velcro Dog is a literal term!
Unfortunately, the beast that is Lucy, does not know what boundaries are and thinks every dog is her new BFF. This scared Tawny further, which then woke up Matt, who then handled the Lucy side of things. We ended up with Tawny in the big kennel (which is where I put all the new dogs just so they have their own space away from Lucy), me on the couch, and Lucy near the kennel, then near me, then the couch.
I will always say, it takes a village to catch these dogs and I am super grateful for mine! From AC standing back and letting me do my thing, to my trapping buddy making trips to the site in the morning and keeping me company on the late nights, to my husband for fixing traps when needed or wrestling Lucy when I wake him up in the middle of the night, to all the people who just generally cheer us on.
In the end I may not always spend a lot of time with every single dog we recover, but I never forget any of them. Tawny will be back with her new owner soon, and hopefully this will all just be a distant memory for her. I have been asked to share my Venmo and Amazon Wish List, so those are listed below.
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/5XGFORGPGOW3/?ref_=list_c_wl_lol_ovle&filter=unpurchased&sort=default&viewType=list
Venmo: Krista-Kraft-1 (last four of my number are 4170)
