Some Facebook memories are better than others

It was seven years ago today that I posted this picture on Facebook with the news that Maya had gone missing. The next four weeks were some of the worst I've experienced in our 20 years of rescue work. We pulled Maya from a shelter where she surely would have been euthanized. She had been dumped by her owners (new baby, escaped pen, chased landlord's cattle), and was terrified and completely shut down in the shelter. She was almost feral and was only here a couple days before she escaped from one of our kennels with another dog and took off. The other dog stuck around, Maya did not.

She covered a lot of territory while she was on the lam. We got reports of her being up at the fields at Pleasant Grove by the new high school, and down Rt. 15 as far as the old high school. I got a call from Animal Control about her running along the road causing a traffic hazard. I even spotted her a couple times myself, but she was as scared of me as everyone else and would just disappear into the woods when I called her.

The sightings slowed down and I pretty much gave up hope of ever seeing her again. I'd drive the roads looking for a dead body and once walked into a field where I saw buzzards gathered only to find them feasting on a deer. I knew when we pulled her from that shelter that we were giving her a chance that she wouldn't have had, but still, it seemed that euthanization would have been a kinder end than being killed on the road after running cold, scared, and hungry for a few weeks. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die myself, but I had other dogs to care for, including fosters who did have better prospects, so I kept going.

In March we had a couple of sightings of her back on this side of the river. I borrowed a trap from CASPCA, baited it with canned food, and set it out near some neighbors' trash cans that she had been feeding from. We caught her the first night in that location and carried her home in the trap, not opening it until we were all inside with doors shut.

Amazingly, she had actually gained weight while she was away. This was our first hint about how smart this girl was, although there would be many more to come. She was also in heat, and she fell in love with Trooper. It was her connection to Trooper that really got her to settle down here and decide to make this her home.

I didn't let her out of my sight for weeks. It was a long time before I would trust her in the dog yard. Her roaming days weren't entirely over, but she knew where home was now. She didn't stay away too long (although longer than I would have liked), and she always came home. She bonded to me as well as Trooper, and became my little girl.

If this story sounds familiar, it's because I've written about it several times in the past, probably around this time of year, prompted by the same Facebook memory that popped up today. At least it helps me keep track of Maya's age. She was a year or two old then and it's been seven years, so she must be eight or nine years old at this point. She's still the smartest dog we've ever had, or ever hope to have.

Several subsequent fosters owe their lives to Maya, and to this first picture of her in particular. When I see a scared little shepherd mix girl with ribs showing I immediately think of Maya, and I've taken in several fosters based on that without any other information. She wasn't part of our plans, and she has complicated many aspects of our lives, but I wouldn't trade her for anything.