As I mentioned in my first story about the great dog rescue adventure, we were unable to get one of the five dogs that Saturday. He is very skittish around people (thereby earning himself the name Mr. Skittish in our blog posts). So picking up where I left off last… between Jennifer M. and us, we checked the lake on Saturday night and twice on Sunday with no sign of Mr. Skittish, but some folks camping there said they had seen him, so we weren’t giving up yet.

On Monday night, David and I were on our way to celebrate our anniversary but stopped by the lake first, just in case he was there (after a difficult decision of what to wear that is appropriate for both catching filthy dogs and having a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesday). And he was! But that’s not all… he had teamed up with a new pack! There was a momma dog and three puppies with him. And, let me tell you, they were CUTE!!! All 5 dogs were very hungry. The momma and puppies were very sweet and loveable; in fact, after she had had enough to eat, the momma was a bit of an attention hog. We set up the crate to try to catch Mr. Skittish, but we were unsuccessful. When we left, David talked to Donna (with All About Labs, who took the first batch) about the new additions to see what could be done about them. Between Donna and her friend Judy, who runs a rescue in Malvern, they had places for them!

Tuesday we didn’t see them, but we theorized that maybe they wander around and re-appear at that spot around 7 PM, since they had been seen at that time twice. So Wednesday night, the three of us showed up around 7, and they were there. Jennifer M. brought some hot dogs and lunch meat for an extra-tasty treat to lure them. With crates set up, we tried a variety of methods for about an hour to catch Mr. Skittish first. He would get close, but not really close enough to be messed with. He would even eat out of our hands, but as soon as that other hand came up to him, he darted back a few feet. We hated to fail again, but after consulting with Donna, we took the momma and puppies (who were caught with no effort at all) and headed back to our house. Better to rescue four out of five than possibly none. That makes sense logically, but still it was heartbreaking to see Mr. Skittish standing there watching us while we loaded up the others and drove off with them. I still feel guilty about it, although guilt usually comes when you know you’ve done something wrong, and I don’t think we did anything wrong. Maybe it was one of those no-win situations.

The momma and pups did great at our house. The temperature was nice, so we set up a little corral with puppy fences in our garage. They all zonked out and didn’t make a peep! On Thursday morning, David loaded them up and took them down to Little Rock, where a group of rescuers meets every week to load up dogs on a transport truck headed to the Northeast. (A lot of dogs from the South get adopted out to the Northeast, because they actually have spay/neuter laws up there and don’t have as much of an animal overpopulation problem.) Since Donna and Judy were both going to be there, it made a convenient place to drop off the dogs, and David got to see the transport operation.

There is still hope for Mr. Skittish. Donna drove up and spent a morning out there watching him, believes he is catchable, and contacted Desiree, the Arkansas state director for the US Humane Society, who has experience with this sort of thing, and she’s on it now. I cannot believe these ladies’ commitment to catching this elusive dog. They aren’t going to give up on him easily! I sure hope there’s a “Rescue Part 3” to tell in a few days.

Here are a few pics:

These two liked to play tug-of-war with the towel:

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