"Ella" Black and White Cockapoo, Alameda - Found!

Thanks Jackie!

She's doing well. We went to the vet this morning and they checked out her icky paw - which was infected with three foxtails! Other than that she's fine! I've attached a picture of Ella for you. I'm actually meeting with a journalist from the Oakland Tribune tomorrow who will take photos of us together.

Thank you, Dot and Dino for all of your help. :-)

Gina

Ella is a black and white Cockapoo. She was staying with a friend of her person in Alameda, though she lives in Oakland. By accident she got away from the home. She has a collar with tags and is microchipped. I was called after Ella had been missing for a few days. They had already set up humane traps in a couple of different locations where she repeatedly visited, though she did not enter them.

There were multiple ongoing sightings of Ella throughout a small area of Alameda, and she did not appear to veer much further from those areas. The sightings seemed to be in the early evening (between 8 PM to 11 pM) and early morning (5 AM to 8 AM).

Since there were multiple sightings of Ella in a small area, I told her person that it would be very difficult to do a straight track because her scent would be all over the area criss crossing each other. What we decided to do instead is to search the known area in the daytime to look for possible hideaways. Amazing, we found several secluded areas where her scent was very strong and repetitive, and where sightings had not been.

We found a small school yard that had a large cut in the fence, however, the cut was well hidden in the far corner of a child's playground. Dino found the scent that led directly to that spot, and with the permission of the school, we entered the locked and gated field. There were several "pools of scent" in this field under the stadium seats, under storage bins and under other large discarded items. In both or opinions we felt that, based on the centrality of that spot to all the sightings, that Ella was spending a lot of time there, and easily remaining hidden, especially since the school was closed for the summer.

There was also a large old house that had its lower level completely open and gutted, and there was Ella's scent in that area and all around the yard. This building was also in the area of all the sightings.

We did find a perimeter to Ella's scent several blocks away in each direction, which confirmed that she was still in the area and had not strayed.

About one week later, I received the above email from Ella's person that she had been sighted, once again, in the same area in the same time frames. Her person had been staying in the area of these sightings and in the timeframes in case there was another sighting so she could quickly get there. It worked! There was another sighting, and she was nearby. She ran over there and there was Ella. She called to Ella and the dog quickly came to her!