14 November 2009
On Thu, Aug 21 I saw Adrienne at the NSPCA. Adrienne is a long-time rescuer of dogs. It doesn't seem like even a week goes by before she has brought in some stray dog that was wandering around. She knew that I had recently started trapping cats and asked me if I would be willing to help her with a dog. She explained the situation, and I readily agreed.
Baron Mining
Some miners were working a claim in Jean, NV. Their camp was located close to the airport. A dog had been coming around and they had been feeding it. They had reached the point where they could feed her by hand, but they hadn't been able to safely catch her. Their claim expired and they had to leave. Adrienne's friend Joe had been going out there to provide her food and water, but no one had been out there since Sun! Being familiar with the area I told her I would head out and see if I could get a picture or at least confirm that she was still around.
I collected up the stuff I needed and by the time I got out there it was almost noon. The sun beat down oppressively and even the hardiest of Mojave's daytime inhabitants, the White-Tailed Antelope Squirrels were laying low. Just south of the airport a sign reading "Baron Mining and Assaying". The abandoned site looked desolate an uninviting consisting of little more than a concrete building pad, an electrical pole with a transformer and steel pole for a satellite dish. A hose bib stuck out of the ground promising life giving water, but the open tap was as dry as the sand underfoot.
Camp Site
I filled a bowl with dry food and topped it with a can of wet food. I filled the small water bowl that I had brought and immediately wished I had thought to bring a bucket, it was so hot! I poked around and found a promising set of tracks. Too large to be a coyote, they definitely belonged to a medium-sized canid, in the range of what Adrienne had described, 40- 50 lbs.
Old Track
I snapped some photos and then drove down a dirt road to the berm that supports the railroad tracks. Passing through that berm are several tunnels to allow water and vehicles to pass under the tracks. It looked like an ideal location to shelter from the sun. Unfortunately, I didn't see any other sign of her.
On Sat morning, I returned early and discovered all of the food was gone. I replaced the water bowl with a 3 gallon bucket and filled it to the brim. I filled up the food bowl and as I did, I had the distinct feeling that she was close by, watching me. I made a big show putting the food out, whistling and calling out. When I got back in the car, I headed down the road about 3/4 of a mile away before stopping. I got out my 20X spotting scope and steadied it on the the open car door. The place where I had stopped was slightly higher than the camp site and I had an excellent unobstructed view of the food bowl.
Fresh Track
She was eating from the bowl and occasionally glancing in my direction. She looked like a Siberian Husky. In the first of many bad decisions, I decided to try to drive closer so I could get a good photo. Without a decent lens, this proved to be fruitless. In the faint pre-dawn light, she was just a set of blurry pixels amidst a larger set of blurry pixels! My approach in the vehicle spooked her and she moved off rapidly to the south. I watched her for as long as I could through the scope and noted the position where I lost site of her.
In my second bad decision before even eating breakfast, I decided to follow her tracks to see if I could figure out where she held up during the day. There had been a tiny amount of rain the night before and a light breeze had created perfect conditions for tracking. Even though it was overcast and the lighting was poor, the ground conditions made it easy for me to follow her tracks. I did so for nearly a mile until I reached a point were a small wash intersected with a cattle fence. Clearly she was using this spot to cross the fence. The wash led to a tunnel that passed underneath the interstate, but it was choked with tumbleweeds and looked impassable. At this point I lost the track so I headed back to the car and called Adrienne to tell her what I had seen.
The next morning I returned with the "Stealth Cam" which is basically a camera with an IR sensor that triggers whenever something passes in front of it. I attached it to the Satellite dish pole but had to move the food to a new location so the stealth cam could have the sun behind it. I tested out the stealth cam and when I was satisfied that it was covering the area with the food bowl, I turned it on. I set my digital camera up on cinderblock pointing at the food from another direction. I started that camera recording video and then got into the car and drove off. I kept looking back at the site but I never caught a glimpse of her.
I returned and saw that the food was sitting there, untouched. The stealth cam was still pointing and it triggered when I approached the food bowl. My digital camera on the other had was gone. Two clear paw prints showed where she had walked up to it. I followed her steps and about 30 feet away, the camera was laying in the dirt, still recording. I picked it up and it was still wet with her saliva. Curious, I stopped the recording, (I wish I had kept filming and captured the distance from the cinderblock!) and reviewed the video. I fast forwarded until 8:26 seconds into the shot, the camera shakes and then you can clearly see her white legs as she walks with it in her mouth!
Shocked at her wiliness I packed up and made yet another mistake by leaving the food for her. The next day I came back with three cameras and set them up to capture her approach from any angle. Full satiated from a big meal the day before, she foiled my simple plan by completely ignoring the food. I packed up again, but this time I took the food with me leaving the bucket filled to the brim with water. I waited a couple of days, and then returned before dawn. As I approached the site with my windows rolled down, I heard barking. I pulled over and got out my camera to catch the sound. As soon as I started recording, the barking stopped.
I pulled into the site and started setting up the stealth cam. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. She was standing a 100' away staring at me! I moved away from the food bowl and she moved in to eat, obviously quite hungry. I watched her eat, talking to her in soothing tones while I called Adrienne to tell her of my successful contact. It had taken a week and four trips out here to confirm her presence, but here she was! Clearly she was a Siberian Husky. A little on the skinny side, but not horrible looking for an animal living out in the desert. A black nylon collar was around her neck. I couldn't see any tags, but surely she had been someone's dog at some point! I shot some video and snapped a couple of crappy photographs. When she'd finished her meal, she moved off a little ways and laid down. I talked to her a bit more and then rang up Adrian excitedly.
Adrienne, Pam and I came up with a plan to trap her on Saturday morning. We agreed to meet at the NSPCA shelter at 5:45 AM. Adrienne brought ground beef and grease she had secured from KFC. Pam brought Nancy's trap. We headed out and about a half mile from the site stopped so that Pam could wait with Adrienne while I baited the trap. As I pulled away, the MP3 player in my TomTom selected Chumbawumba's "I get knocked down". Feeling that this song was appropriate for the light-hearted excitement I was feeling right now I turned it up loud and the sound was blasting out my windows as I pulled into the camp.
I wrestled the trap out of my car and set it up near where I had been placing the food bowl. I had doubts that she would simply walk into the trap since she had proven to be so clever already. I put the ground beef into the bowl and topped it with some KFC grease. I was in the process of fussing with a towel, trying to cover the trap bottom, when I noticed her standing only 20' away. The look on her face was clear, "What's taking you so long? I WANT THAT FOOD!"
I stopped messing with the towel and moved away from the trap, retreating to the car. Without hesitation, she walked into the trap and put her face down to the bowl. For a brief instant, the trap did not trigger and I started to utter,"Ah crap" but then the door fell shut. She panicked briefly, but as soon as she saw that she could not get out, she went back to eating the ground beef!
I called Adreinne and told her that I had her. I approached the trap with my camera and she was visibly shaking. When Pam came up she had already started to relax a little. We moved her into the back of Adrienne's Explorer and spent 30 or 45 minutes snacking on fruit and tea cookies that she had so generously brought. It's the great thing about Adrienne, the treats are always so good! By the time we were leaving the dog was clearly quite relaxed.
Captured!
Pam transported her to a local vet where she was vaccinated, spayed etc. There was no tag or microchip so I assume that she was dumped out there. To me it's the perfect place. Right next to the interstate, off of a exit with minimal traffic. I had hoped that she would have a chip and that we would find the owner, a truly happy ending, but this one will do.
Adrienne told me that as the trapper, I had the right to give her a name. She suggested finding the word "thief" in another language. My mind immediately flashed back to a time when we had a disagreement about the fare with a taxi driver in Lop Burii Thailand. As we leaped over a wall to escape from him, he called after us with the Thai word for thief "Khamoi! Khamoi!" I suggested it as a name and she liked it.
Baron MiningSome miners were working a claim in Jean, NV. Their camp was located close to the airport. A dog had been coming around and they had been feeding it. They had reached the point where they could feed her by hand, but they hadn't been able to safely catch her. Their claim expired and they had to leave. Adrienne's friend Joe had been going out there to provide her food and water, but no one had been out there since Sun! Being familiar with the area I told her I would head out and see if I could get a picture or at least confirm that she was still around.
I collected up the stuff I needed and by the time I got out there it was almost noon. The sun beat down oppressively and even the hardiest of Mojave's daytime inhabitants, the White-Tailed Antelope Squirrels were laying low. Just south of the airport a sign reading "Baron Mining and Assaying". The abandoned site looked desolate an uninviting consisting of little more than a concrete building pad, an electrical pole with a transformer and steel pole for a satellite dish. A hose bib stuck out of the ground promising life giving water, but the open tap was as dry as the sand underfoot.
Camp SiteI filled a bowl with dry food and topped it with a can of wet food. I filled the small water bowl that I had brought and immediately wished I had thought to bring a bucket, it was so hot! I poked around and found a promising set of tracks. Too large to be a coyote, they definitely belonged to a medium-sized canid, in the range of what Adrienne had described, 40- 50 lbs.
Old TrackI snapped some photos and then drove down a dirt road to the berm that supports the railroad tracks. Passing through that berm are several tunnels to allow water and vehicles to pass under the tracks. It looked like an ideal location to shelter from the sun. Unfortunately, I didn't see any other sign of her.
On Sat morning, I returned early and discovered all of the food was gone. I replaced the water bowl with a 3 gallon bucket and filled it to the brim. I filled up the food bowl and as I did, I had the distinct feeling that she was close by, watching me. I made a big show putting the food out, whistling and calling out. When I got back in the car, I headed down the road about 3/4 of a mile away before stopping. I got out my 20X spotting scope and steadied it on the the open car door. The place where I had stopped was slightly higher than the camp site and I had an excellent unobstructed view of the food bowl.
Fresh TrackShe was eating from the bowl and occasionally glancing in my direction. She looked like a Siberian Husky. In the first of many bad decisions, I decided to try to drive closer so I could get a good photo. Without a decent lens, this proved to be fruitless. In the faint pre-dawn light, she was just a set of blurry pixels amidst a larger set of blurry pixels! My approach in the vehicle spooked her and she moved off rapidly to the south. I watched her for as long as I could through the scope and noted the position where I lost site of her.
In my second bad decision before even eating breakfast, I decided to follow her tracks to see if I could figure out where she held up during the day. There had been a tiny amount of rain the night before and a light breeze had created perfect conditions for tracking. Even though it was overcast and the lighting was poor, the ground conditions made it easy for me to follow her tracks. I did so for nearly a mile until I reached a point were a small wash intersected with a cattle fence. Clearly she was using this spot to cross the fence. The wash led to a tunnel that passed underneath the interstate, but it was choked with tumbleweeds and looked impassable. At this point I lost the track so I headed back to the car and called Adrienne to tell her what I had seen.
The next morning I returned with the "Stealth Cam" which is basically a camera with an IR sensor that triggers whenever something passes in front of it. I attached it to the Satellite dish pole but had to move the food to a new location so the stealth cam could have the sun behind it. I tested out the stealth cam and when I was satisfied that it was covering the area with the food bowl, I turned it on. I set my digital camera up on cinderblock pointing at the food from another direction. I started that camera recording video and then got into the car and drove off. I kept looking back at the site but I never caught a glimpse of her.
I returned and saw that the food was sitting there, untouched. The stealth cam was still pointing and it triggered when I approached the food bowl. My digital camera on the other had was gone. Two clear paw prints showed where she had walked up to it. I followed her steps and about 30 feet away, the camera was laying in the dirt, still recording. I picked it up and it was still wet with her saliva. Curious, I stopped the recording, (I wish I had kept filming and captured the distance from the cinderblock!) and reviewed the video. I fast forwarded until 8:26 seconds into the shot, the camera shakes and then you can clearly see her white legs as she walks with it in her mouth!
Shocked at her wiliness I packed up and made yet another mistake by leaving the food for her. The next day I came back with three cameras and set them up to capture her approach from any angle. Full satiated from a big meal the day before, she foiled my simple plan by completely ignoring the food. I packed up again, but this time I took the food with me leaving the bucket filled to the brim with water. I waited a couple of days, and then returned before dawn. As I approached the site with my windows rolled down, I heard barking. I pulled over and got out my camera to catch the sound. As soon as I started recording, the barking stopped.
I pulled into the site and started setting up the stealth cam. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. She was standing a 100' away staring at me! I moved away from the food bowl and she moved in to eat, obviously quite hungry. I watched her eat, talking to her in soothing tones while I called Adrienne to tell her of my successful contact. It had taken a week and four trips out here to confirm her presence, but here she was! Clearly she was a Siberian Husky. A little on the skinny side, but not horrible looking for an animal living out in the desert. A black nylon collar was around her neck. I couldn't see any tags, but surely she had been someone's dog at some point! I shot some video and snapped a couple of crappy photographs. When she'd finished her meal, she moved off a little ways and laid down. I talked to her a bit more and then rang up Adrian excitedly.
Adrienne, Pam and I came up with a plan to trap her on Saturday morning. We agreed to meet at the NSPCA shelter at 5:45 AM. Adrienne brought ground beef and grease she had secured from KFC. Pam brought Nancy's trap. We headed out and about a half mile from the site stopped so that Pam could wait with Adrienne while I baited the trap. As I pulled away, the MP3 player in my TomTom selected Chumbawumba's "I get knocked down". Feeling that this song was appropriate for the light-hearted excitement I was feeling right now I turned it up loud and the sound was blasting out my windows as I pulled into the camp.
I wrestled the trap out of my car and set it up near where I had been placing the food bowl. I had doubts that she would simply walk into the trap since she had proven to be so clever already. I put the ground beef into the bowl and topped it with some KFC grease. I was in the process of fussing with a towel, trying to cover the trap bottom, when I noticed her standing only 20' away. The look on her face was clear, "What's taking you so long? I WANT THAT FOOD!"
I stopped messing with the towel and moved away from the trap, retreating to the car. Without hesitation, she walked into the trap and put her face down to the bowl. For a brief instant, the trap did not trigger and I started to utter,"Ah crap" but then the door fell shut. She panicked briefly, but as soon as she saw that she could not get out, she went back to eating the ground beef!
I called Adreinne and told her that I had her. I approached the trap with my camera and she was visibly shaking. When Pam came up she had already started to relax a little. We moved her into the back of Adrienne's Explorer and spent 30 or 45 minutes snacking on fruit and tea cookies that she had so generously brought. It's the great thing about Adrienne, the treats are always so good! By the time we were leaving the dog was clearly quite relaxed.
Captured!Pam transported her to a local vet where she was vaccinated, spayed etc. There was no tag or microchip so I assume that she was dumped out there. To me it's the perfect place. Right next to the interstate, off of a exit with minimal traffic. I had hoped that she would have a chip and that we would find the owner, a truly happy ending, but this one will do.
Adrienne told me that as the trapper, I had the right to give her a name. She suggested finding the word "thief" in another language. My mind immediately flashed back to a time when we had a disagreement about the fare with a taxi driver in Lop Burii Thailand. As we leaped over a wall to escape from him, he called after us with the Thai word for thief "Khamoi! Khamoi!" I suggested it as a name and she liked it.
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