Our Lost Katie

 
 
 
 
 
Three of our greyhounds chased some critter at the Swamp a week ago - Saturday, 1/30. Stu returned, Sammie was found on the other side of the fence hours later, and we’re still searching for Kate. So many friends of ours and of Northcoast Greyhounds are offering positive thoughts and suggestions, so I thought this may be a way to keep friends informed, unsophisticated as I am about this blogging stuff. “Schroeder’s Swamp”, our personal greyhound playground, is nearly 20 acres of natural wetlands with a road, and trails throughout - all fenced. Unfortunately, there is a bear who comes to visit at night, tearing up the dogs’ plastic swimming pools, and in a few places, bends down the fence. It was over one of these places where we found Sammie and assume it was there that Kate went over. Here is a map of the Swamp and surrounding area. And here is a larger view, though the halves don’t match perfectly. You can see that the entrance to The Swamp is on Azalea, and the property backs up to Simpson Lumber Company’s timberland. We have covered all the roads and streets surrounding the woods across Azalea with posters and fliers in neon colors- throughout all of McKinleyville, actually, more than 700 of them. Yesterday, Jerry and I put fliers in every mailbox we could find on the roads inside Murray/Fieldbrook/299. Some of these barely passable roads go up into the timberland but we drove them, treading lightly into encampments of trailers and windowless barns with guard dogs- this is Humboldt County, after all, and there are marijuana “grows” up there on Simpson property. All those guys we met were all friendly once they knew why we were there. Naturally, we’ve hit all the local vets offices and there are regular announcements on KHUM radio. We’ve posted fliers at feed stores (there are horse prints up there), and placed a 3-column ad in the local Times-Standard and weekly Northcoast Journal. Fliers were taken to the Sherriff’s substation here in McKinleyville and distributed to volunteer SCOP drivers (senior volunteers driving police cars through neighborhoods). Yes, an ad has been placed under “Pets” on Humboldt’s Craigslist. Friends have sent announcements to local email lists for bicycle riders, neighborhood groups, and other organizations- some of which I have never heard. We have a list of all the animal rescue organizations (which includes animal control) here on the Northcoast, and those on it have been forwarding my email to friends and members near McKinleyville. It amazes me how many people we’ve encountered who say, “I received an email about Kate.” Sometimes twice. A good friend, Noreen, who at one time did Search & Rescue with her bloodhounds and is an avid outdoors-woman, hiked into Simpson with another good friend, Claudia on Wednesday in the rain. A labor of love on their parts for which I’ll be forever greytful. On Thursday, Noreen went back with a male friend, also adept slogging through wet woodlands. The woods are filled with logging roads and trails- easy to get lost. Both times, Noreen returned after 6 or more hours, wet and caked with mud, having discovered no sign of Kate. The second day, however, she told me that she and her friend had searched a grid of the swampiest area beyond our greyhound playground. She is confident that Katie did not get stuck in there- a huge relief. Linda Wahland of Eureka and Jean Ussery of North Carolina, both animal communicators continue to assure me that Kate is alive and trying to come home. They give me hope- and suggestions. They are telling her to watch for people watching for her and not to be afraid to go to them... So much of this would be impossible were it not for our friends Carol Lawrence and Tom Cockle who have been here almost constantly for the past week, staying with our other six greyhounds as Jerry and I are on the road, either together or separately. Thank God the 4 of us are retired- I don’t know how others of you participating in searches manage to do this with full time jobs. Carol & Tom have known every one of our greyhounds since each arrived and just knowing our kids have company who love them, allows Jerry and me to concentrate our efforts on Kate. Even so, the kids are a bit discombobulated with this huge break in their normal routine. Carol & Tom also volunteer at the local animal shelter, so were there first thing Monday morning, after Kate’s disappearance, to assure the Sherriff’s Department animal control drivers knew about Kate. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6TH - one week missing I’ve been out on the roads around the Swamp in the early morning (3-5AM) and late at night driving 5 MPH in my silent hybrid car calling Kate’s name- I think my voice carries in the silence, and I would be able to hear her respond. I shout through the gates to Simpson and into the woods across Azalea. But this morning, upon Noreen’s instruction, I stand at the back of the swamp, in water over my ankles, shouting Kate’s name over the pastures between our fence and Simpson for two hours, 5:30-7:00AM as the sun rises, staying in one place in hopes she is following my voice. I picture her moving toward me and I am rooted to the spot. I cannot leave, expecting any minute to see Kate coming towards me. After tearing myself away, Jerry is prepared to leave and walks for 5 hours into one of the Simpson gates in light rain. He encounters some of the clothing pieces, but no sign of Kate and returns exhausted and soaking wet. Noreen informs me that regardless of the rainy season in Humboldt County, the forest canopy is so dense that dry places exist beneath trees, lined with dust and pine needles where Kate could nest. Noreen provides not only her tireless and skillful efforts, but continuous optimism. What would we do without her? On the first day of her search, Noreen encountered two boys in the woods on a quad-runner and instructed them in how to look for Kate and what to do if they spotted her. The following day I got a call from one of the boys’ father who lives on the edge of the woods and knows the logging roads and trails like the back of his hand. John has been riding the roads, calling from hilltops and walking the lower trails for 4 days in the rain and every evening in the dark. We paid him on Friday to play hookie from work. Today he had 3 friends with him. He has yet to find any tracks near the pieces of clothing and food he has distributed in the forest. Noreen is going out on the trails again tomorrow, from a southern point this time, on foot. She has managed to convince some of her volunteer firemen to join the search through Simpson - they’ll be on mountain bikes on logging roads, and on foot through the trails. Though John has good heart and is a hard worker, I worry the sound of his quad runner - in between silences, squawking and calling Kate’s name - will freak her out. So tomorrow will be a day of silence with a new approach and fresh eyes. We’ll deliver them all to various Simpson gates early in the morning. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH I couldn’t sleep last night and came down to type some of this at 1:30- consequently, I slept ‘til nearly 7AM and woke panicked at the thought of this being the first day I was not out there calling for Kate in the early morning silence. So Jerry went over at 7:30, right after sunrise to call for her at the back of the Swamp as I sit hear waiting for Noreen’s call with her search plan for today with the mountain-biking firemen. Still, we have no real sightings, but a few difficult stories: A woman called asking if Katie was wearing a leash- no, she was not. She’d seen a black dog get hit by a car, but it was wearing a leash. Another woman called on Friday saying she’d seen a dog just like Katie standing beside a white pick-up at the pump station down by the Mad River- at the end of Azalea. A return call to her revealed that she saw the dog around 10AM, and Katie disappeared at 2:00PM. False hope. This is a bad one: a woman called saying her son had hit a black dog on the 101 freeway which had mashed the fender, broken the windshield, etc. Claudia made 5 or 6 phone calls to Highway Patrol dispatcher & Caltrans to learn that the dog was described as a Great Dane wearing a leather collar, when Katie is wearing a teal velvet flat-tag collar. It seemed impossible for a greyhound to do that much damage, but we’d take no chances. Jerry and Noreen went down to 101 and Murray Road where Highway Patrol said they’d left the dog beneath a tree for CalTrans to pick up. They couldn’t find it. Friday, as Jerry and I were driving way up into the woods, the driver called, saying, “I know this was your dog- it looked just like the pictures. I’m so sorry.” He continued the conversation with, “It did a lot of damage. We were underinsured. I don’t know how we are going to pay for this...” Claudia, bless her heart, can find anyone- even on a Friday when CalTrans is closed. She called a friend to get the home phone number of the person she’d been speaking to on Thursday, who assured her, “this was NOT their dog- it was big and bulky and definitely not a greyhound - have the guy call me.” Is there anyone lower than one who would resort to extortion under such sad circumstances? What if we’d believed him and stopped our search? This is a bad one, too: A man called here several days ago saying there was a mountain lion with two cubs in the neighborhood. Then, yesterday, a neighbor at the opposite end of Sunnygrove who didn’t even now about Kate, called to warn us that a lion had killed one of her two pet goats. On our own street. I will not dwell upon this. The wildlife biologist with whom she spoke said dogs are used to hunt mountain lions because they’ll bark and tree them. Please, Katie. Bark your fool head off..... Noreen called: She and her husband Steve are leaving with full packs to tramp into the forest from Essex Road upon a trail Steve and friends used to run through in past years. We’ve got to assume Kate did not cross the freeway and Essex is the southern boundary of the forest, near 101. The firemen had a late call last night and are not yet responding. When they call, Jerry and I will show them or take them to a gate into Simpson on Murray Road, a northern entrance and instruct them to head south. Thus, we’ll be on call all day to pick up hikers and bikers at points on the perimeter to take them back to their vehicles. NORTHCOAST GREYHOUNDS is pretty much on hold. Susie McQuade, of GALT, and I had planned to meet in Tucson on Thursday for the largest gem and mineral show in the country- stocking up on jewels for auctions and the website for most of the next year. Our excursion was, of course, cancelled. The trip was not meant to be - on Thursday night, Susie’s Gracie was in terrible discomfort and it was discovered at the vets office the following morning that Gracie had hemangioma of the spleen. Fortunately for this 13 year old girl, it all happened fast. What if we had been out of town? Together, Jerry and I mourn their loss, as Susie and John sympathize with our anxiety. Susie, thoughtful as she is, asked GALT friends to send support, and they did- all including, “Please do not respond.”, knowing where our time must be spent. To all our GALT friends- your kindness sustains us. It doesn’t take long to fill orders, and I’ve kept up, but it’s obvious nothing new is going up on the website, and normal correspondence is at a standstill. That’s not all. The stack of mail on my desk remains untouched. Our bed was due to be changed last Saturday - maybe I’ll get to that as I wait for bikers to call. The only laundry being done is of muddy jeans and wet shirts in order to have them available for the next day. We’ve been surviving on junk and comfort food, caught at odd hours, and Jerry says he’s lost 4 pounds. I know where its gone- to me! Our minds and our time are occupied with nothing but Kate. I know all of our greyhound friends will understand. Hopefully, this blog will keep everyone informed at the same time. Please say a prayer for our little girl.... Oh DAMN- We just realized it’s Super Bowl Sunday. We weren’t thinking about that when one of the firemen offered to go out yesterday afternoon and we suggested today would be better, since John was up there on his quad-runner yesterday. We may not get any of these young men today.... KATIE COMES HOME! She is found! After 8 full days on her own. She’s thin, but not devastatingly so. She does have a large wound on her left front leg where the skin is missing but tissue beneath appears healthy. We’ve already left a message for our vets office to get us in as soon as possible in the morning. No point in visiting an unknown emergency vet, when her leg has undoubtedly been this way for days.... I cannot tell you the jubilation that happened with this call! Noreen and Steve had started at the southernmost place on the map- Essex Road, and come out of the woods with “Nellie” at the northernmost- on Murray Road. I had driven there to load them up and was on the way home when I got the call from Jerry that Kate had been found by a family on Sutter Road, 3 streets up from The Swamp. A little girl had called Jerry, and her Mother, Betty, who works at Sunny Brae Animal Hospital, tells us that she’d seen Kate running across the field behind her house towards the woods which would have aimed her at the back of the Swamp where we’d been calling in the mornings. She said that when she called Kate, she came to her right away. The gate pictured, is across the cul-de-sac from the home of the family who found her. I had stood at that gate and called into the woods every day at least once, sometimes twice. Jerry drove up in a different van and I had Noreen & Steve & Nellie with me to meet her. Carol and Tom rushed over when we arrived home and Claudia appeared for the second time today- the first time, she came bearing gifts of a roasted chicken, potato salads, sandwiches and deserts. What wonderful friends we are blessed to have! How many friends are willing to slog through mud and muck for days on end? to drop all their personal obligations to provide good company for our greyhound family? to bring us meals so that we wouldn’t have to deal with such mundane necessities in the midst of turmoil? It’s been all of them who have kept our spirits up. I have to admit that as of today, I was at a loss to come up with another new approach. We had done everything we could think of doing- all that was left was to do everything we’d done all over again. Fact is, that visiting that gate every morning was beginning to feel useless.... There is NO doubt in my mind that all your prayers and kind thoughts today, after reading this blog, helped to guide Katie back to us. As of tonight, we are doing nothing but hugging Kate and absorbing this astounding feeling of relief. Tomorrow, we’ll take Kate to the vet. And maybe I’ll change the bed. And look through my mail. And search for a trade show to purchase new jewels to offer on the website. It’s possible that it will take weeks to recuperate from this stressful 8 days, and we’ll be enjoying every single minute of them! Our Katie is home with her friends. Her leg and our hearts are already healing. Thank you friends, near and far, for helping to guide her home to us. Cara & Jerry Brockhoff Kate, Zinnia, Deuce, Stu & Stella, Sammie and Pickles P.S.. Apologies for being inept at blogging- you can see the slideshow HERE! Katie: The WRAP UP! Tuesday, February 9th Literally, if you look at the pictures- Katie is all wrapped up. :) There’s an image, taken by the vet, of her sad wound, too. It’s ugly and will take a while to heal, but it’s not life threatening. Katie weighed 65 pounds at her visit in September, and 55 pounds yesterday. Katie was at the vet’s office first thing on Monday morning to cleanse the wound and keep it moist for tomorrow morning’s procedure. Under anesthesia, our regular veterinarian will try to stitch some of the edges together to make the gap in skin a little smaller. No matter how you look at it, though, it will have to heal in, and it will take time. She’ll have a dental at the same time. The good news is, that yesterday afternoon, when Jerry loaded up the other dogs for a ride to the grocery store and I kept Katie with me, she lay in front of the door to the garage barking until they returned. “You went without ME???” Katie is all about normality and routine- the minute we brought her in the door to be met by her friends and rescuers, she lay down on her chosen wait-for-dinner-bed in the kitchen. And most of the time is warmly ensconced on one of her two favorite beds in the Greyt Room- either at the top of the 2 steps down to the dining room, or by the fire- where all our Family Hours are spent. You’d think she’d never been gone. Oh, how I wish she could tell her story. Did she roam all that Simpson Lumber territory, maybe chasing down a rabbit to sustain herself? Heaven knows there was no problem finding water. Or did she stay near the Swamp the entire time? I’ve included two maps among the pictures- one showing where she was found, and a divided one showing the extent of the massive lumber property behind the Swamp. We covered all those roads around and into Simpson Lumber company- 2 full tanks of gas in my little hybrid car! As for Jerry and me, we’re having a little trouble decompressing. The 8 long days Katie was gone were filled with tension, anxiety, hard work and little sleep. I thought that this huge sense of relief would cause all that fear to dissipate, but it hasn’t. Unusually the first one up this morning, I gave the dogs their treats and opened the back door for them. As I stood in the dark on the deck, I could still feel my heart being squeezed at the thought of Katie out there all alone. As I drove down Azalea to 299 at noon to take Claudia & Noreen to a celebration lunch, the stress of driving that road under different circumstances, over and over again, was with me still. I know I must open all this mail and start my taxes. I know I must get back to Northcoast Greyhounds and do something for the website. I should get a new auction up there- GREYTSTUFF has nothing on eBay to offer you. I know I must return some emails- especially to those who don’t yet know Katie has been found- I’ll do that first. For now, however, we’ll think about Katie’s visit to the vet tomorrow and pamper her when she returns. And we’ll hug all our babies with more gratitude than ever that they are all here with us and safe and sound. And eventually, we’ll be able to follow Katie’s example and get back to normal. This blog began on Friday night and Saturday morning, after Kate had been gone for a week. Too many people were beginning to find out and offering suggestions and support. I knew I couldn’t respond to all of you, but felt I just had to keep everyone informed. After writing about our fruitless search and sharing it with all our local and greyhound friends- well, you know what happened- Katie was found the very next day. There are no coincidences- I know in my heart that it was the outpouring of love and concern for her that directed Katie back to us. We just can’t thank all of you enough. Wednesday, February 10th This is the third time I thought I was ending this blog, but it’s not yet over. Jerry and I are about to pick Kate up from the vet’s office where we dropped her off this morning to have some of the corners of her wound sewn together in hopes there would be a smaller area to heal. The vet called to say the wound, being on the top of her leg where it bends, would never heal- and if it did close over, it would seriously restrict movement of that leg. She has referred us to a specialist at the Animal Care Center in Santa Rosa, 5 hours south of us. Consequently, we leave town tomorrow, for skin grafting surgery on Friday. We’ll return on Saturday or Sunday, depending upon the surgeon’s wishes. Once again we must call on Carol & Tom to come stay with our kids- whatever would we do without our extended family? We were told they could take us as early as tomorrow, but with anesthesia today, and skipping another meal she cannot afford after losing 10 pounds, we thought it best to wait an extra day. Your positive thoughts and prayers are appreciated for this poor little girl who has already been through so much.... Obviously nothing at all is happening on the NCG website, but I’ve put up a “Celebration Auction” - a favorite piece of my own, to keep greyhound folks busy for the next 10 days. The total amount of the bid will be contributed to the high bidder’s choice of adoption organizations. I hope it brings a BIG price so we can send a BIG check to some group in celebration of Katie’s homecoming. Ever greytful, Cara Wednesday, March 3, 2010 FIRST- The high bid for that auction was $735, and THEN, the generous high bidder allowed me to offer the pendant to the next highest bidder! So, thanks to these two bidders, we mailed TWO checks, rounded up to $825 each, to both GPA/Tallahassee for Pam Davis, and Greyhound Adoption League of Texas! As far as Kate is concerned, we’re not out of the woods yet. Katie had skin grafting surgery in Rohnert Park on 2/12 and after 3 weeks of intensive treatment, washing and warm compresses, the graft failed. It was almost totally necrotic. We returned to Rohnert Park for more surgery, after which the surgeon removed the graft and applied a “tie-over” bandage which he changed daily for 5 days, causing us a longer motel stay than intended. Once again- thank God for Carol & Tom who stayed with the rest of our greyt family! Kate is getting the best of care by two different hospitals, 6 hours apart- and the staff is having fun decorating Kate’s bandage. We’ve decided to retain the excess skin from the tube that bridged the gap from where-the-skin-used-to-be and where-it-went, just in case we need it later. Since this nub was irritated from rubbing on the vet wrap and annoyed Katie by banging against the bandage when she walked, we’d experimented with solutions as you’ll see in the newest picture collection. :) Katie is a happy camper and wants badly to be “normal” - I caught her playing with a toy here in my office yesterday- “HOLD IT DOWN, KATE!!” Sit. Stay. Now, HEAL! Cara https://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1566.jpghttps://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1567.jpghttps://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1569.jpghttps://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1569.jpghttps://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1568.jpghttps://www.northcoastgreyhounds.net/images/store/item_1568.jpghttp://gallery.me.com/ncgreyhounds#100294http://gallery.me.com/ncgreyhounds/100294http://tinyurl.com/qvtqshttp://tinyurl.com/qvtqshttp://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=600282http://gallery.me.com/ncgreyhounds#100325shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4shapeimage_1_link_5shapeimage_1_link_6shapeimage_1_link_7shapeimage_1_link_8shapeimage_1_link_9shapeimage_1_link_10shapeimage_1_link_11

Our Lost Katie

 
 
Made on a Mac
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