The Story of the Family Sly
angelene asked about the Family Sly because she had missed some of the earlier details of the story. I was going to answer her directly, but good ol' LJ didn't want to let me post that many words in a comment, so I'm going to put it here. I thought it might be handy for anyone else who had missed parts of the story or come in in the middle of it. I probably should be more coherent than it's turned out to be, but I get so emotional about Sly that it's hard to be coherent at times. I have decided that this story is possibly the most important that I've been involved with in my whole life, so it's hard to be objective. But I completely understand about missing pieces of ongoing stories, and I never mind talking about Sly, so no problem at all. :) I am trying to document all the contact with these dogs that I can because I'm sort of trying to start writing the whole story somewhere other than here, but LJ is a good place - thanks in part to the tags - to put all the day-to-day info on these dogs so that I have the details here for later checking.
Anyway, here's the story....
Sly first showed up in January of 2007. He is at an interstate highway exit - the exit that I get on and off the interstate at nearest my home, the exit I use to go to and from work. He hung out at first around the gas station/convenience store at the end of the exit ramp. Obviously someone had dumped him there, and the store was probably the best source of food/scraps. But I started feeding him every day, and tried to get him to come to me but he wouldn't. For months, the closest I could get to him was about 6 feet...then he would bounce away and do this little, "woo-woo-woo" bark at me.
In March last year, we planned a big rescue thing - five or six of us trying to catch this poor dog - and we discovered that he had a "friend"...we saw him with another dog in a hiding place that we hadn't spotted before. So our plan to draw him out with a female dog wasn't going to work.
Within the next couple of months, we discovered that he and his friend had moved from that hiding spot to the grass and trees across the road....an area within the ramp of the exit. The exit is one of those that when you exit, you end up facing the way you came, the ramp making a big circle, and now the dogs were living IN that circle, surrounded by the interstate, the exit ramp, and the road that the exit is for. But it's a huge grass-and-trees area, and really beautiful, we discovered over the next few months. We finally talked the county into putting a trap there, and we put food in the trap. The trap was there for three weeks, all baited, and Sly never went near it and nearly starved to death...he's too smart to get caught in a trap. So we had to give up on using the trap.
All this time, I continued to put food and water out every day, and would make arrangements for someone else to do so if I couldn't. At the end of August, I stopped to put food out and saw six tiny puppies wobbling through the trees. For the next weeks and weeks, we organized rescue attempts, with as few as two (Jari and me) and as many as six people working on catching the puppies. The problem was that the puppies were wild, their mom is wild (dumped, too, obviously), and their dad would warn them away if they got too close to us, and he watched over them very, very carefully.
Kalija was the first we caught...I just grabbed him as he was running by on a hidden path. Then Robin and Monica caught Polar, who has no tail. Then I caught Vinny von Vampire (so named because when I picked him up, he bit me on the neck and I had to have a tetanus shot). Then Jari and I caught Princess and Mariah in a crate with very smelly food, but Caine didn't fall for the ruse and is still free with his dad.
We now have a veterinarian who has offered to help us, but he's just gone into business for himself (he was with another vet) so his time is limited, and he wants to do the helping - putting sleeping meds in the food - in the morning so that we have time to find the dogs if they hide and go to sleep. The problem with that is that they eat mainly in the evening and have moved their main base to another location (probably because of all the traffic when we were trying to catch the puppies), so they're only there in the evenings now most of the time. We have to figure out a way of convincing them to come over in the morning so they can eat the sleep-inducing food.
Sly knows me and will come fairly close to me - after all, I've been feeding him for more than a year. I've been as close as one or two feet...and then he's scooted away. He knows me and trusts me to an extent, but doesn't want to be touched, which tells me how horrible the people are that he's come in contact with in the past. Sylvia, Sly's "wife," was even more shy, and usually ran and hid when she saw us - which is why I was so surprised that she didn't do that yesterday. Caine, the last puppy, the one we didn't catch (named for the old Kung Fu character), is still with his dad, so there are three two dogs at the exit now...dogs that I feed every day, dogs that need rescuing still, but it's wild dogs, feral dogs, so they don't want to cooperate.
And now maybe more puppies, which is tough.
Believe me, if I'd been able to catch them, they would've been here a long time ago. I love Sly so much...he's the most incredible, smart, amazing dog I've ever seen. And since he loves Sylvia, I'd take her, too. And that's why the SlyBabies mean so much to me...because they're part of Sly and maybe the only parts I'll ever be able to touch.
Update 6-18-08:
Since I wrote that, we discovered later that month (February) that there were indeed puppies...8 of them. We caught all 8 within 4 days...much easier than the first litter. We have found four of them homes, so we have four more who need forever homes.
I have a pen that is waiting for the day we catch Sly and Sylvia; Jari has agreed to take Caine to socialize as she is good at that. The go-to-sleep meds that the vet tried did not work. We believe that the dogs are staying elsewhere during the day and coming over to the bowls at the exit after dark to eat; this has been seen to be happening by me and others.
I now have Kalija and Princess, I adopted them in January. Jari has Mariah and Vinny, and a couple from north Georgia adopted Polar and sends us pictures of a happy dog regularly.
Update 10-20-08:
Of course, August 21 we rescued Sylvia and the third litter of puppies, seven in all. Three have been adopted, I'm keeping at least one. We are still working on trying to rescue Sly and Caine from the exit, and I still feed them every day. 21 dogs rescued from that exit, all in the same Family, and two more to go. All for the love of one stubborn, very smart dog named Sly. :)
Pictures of Sly:
First ones: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/634648.html
http://soultoad.livejournal.com/635010.html
Others: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/679965.html
Best: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/636520.html
Anyway, here's the story....
Sly first showed up in January of 2007. He is at an interstate highway exit - the exit that I get on and off the interstate at nearest my home, the exit I use to go to and from work. He hung out at first around the gas station/convenience store at the end of the exit ramp. Obviously someone had dumped him there, and the store was probably the best source of food/scraps. But I started feeding him every day, and tried to get him to come to me but he wouldn't. For months, the closest I could get to him was about 6 feet...then he would bounce away and do this little, "woo-woo-woo" bark at me.
In March last year, we planned a big rescue thing - five or six of us trying to catch this poor dog - and we discovered that he had a "friend"...we saw him with another dog in a hiding place that we hadn't spotted before. So our plan to draw him out with a female dog wasn't going to work.
Within the next couple of months, we discovered that he and his friend had moved from that hiding spot to the grass and trees across the road....an area within the ramp of the exit. The exit is one of those that when you exit, you end up facing the way you came, the ramp making a big circle, and now the dogs were living IN that circle, surrounded by the interstate, the exit ramp, and the road that the exit is for. But it's a huge grass-and-trees area, and really beautiful, we discovered over the next few months. We finally talked the county into putting a trap there, and we put food in the trap. The trap was there for three weeks, all baited, and Sly never went near it and nearly starved to death...he's too smart to get caught in a trap. So we had to give up on using the trap.
All this time, I continued to put food and water out every day, and would make arrangements for someone else to do so if I couldn't. At the end of August, I stopped to put food out and saw six tiny puppies wobbling through the trees. For the next weeks and weeks, we organized rescue attempts, with as few as two (Jari and me) and as many as six people working on catching the puppies. The problem was that the puppies were wild, their mom is wild (dumped, too, obviously), and their dad would warn them away if they got too close to us, and he watched over them very, very carefully.
Kalija was the first we caught...I just grabbed him as he was running by on a hidden path. Then Robin and Monica caught Polar, who has no tail. Then I caught Vinny von Vampire (so named because when I picked him up, he bit me on the neck and I had to have a tetanus shot). Then Jari and I caught Princess and Mariah in a crate with very smelly food, but Caine didn't fall for the ruse and is still free with his dad.
We now have a veterinarian who has offered to help us, but he's just gone into business for himself (he was with another vet) so his time is limited, and he wants to do the helping - putting sleeping meds in the food - in the morning so that we have time to find the dogs if they hide and go to sleep. The problem with that is that they eat mainly in the evening and have moved their main base to another location (probably because of all the traffic when we were trying to catch the puppies), so they're only there in the evenings now most of the time. We have to figure out a way of convincing them to come over in the morning so they can eat the sleep-inducing food.
Sly knows me and will come fairly close to me - after all, I've been feeding him for more than a year. I've been as close as one or two feet...and then he's scooted away. He knows me and trusts me to an extent, but doesn't want to be touched, which tells me how horrible the people are that he's come in contact with in the past. Sylvia, Sly's "wife," was even more shy, and usually ran and hid when she saw us - which is why I was so surprised that she didn't do that yesterday. Caine, the last puppy, the one we didn't catch (named for the old Kung Fu character), is still with his dad, so there are three two dogs at the exit now...dogs that I feed every day, dogs that need rescuing still, but it's wild dogs, feral dogs, so they don't want to cooperate.
And now maybe more puppies, which is tough.
Believe me, if I'd been able to catch them, they would've been here a long time ago. I love Sly so much...he's the most incredible, smart, amazing dog I've ever seen. And since he loves Sylvia, I'd take her, too. And that's why the SlyBabies mean so much to me...because they're part of Sly and maybe the only parts I'll ever be able to touch.
Update 6-18-08:
Since I wrote that, we discovered later that month (February) that there were indeed puppies...8 of them. We caught all 8 within 4 days...much easier than the first litter. We have found four of them homes, so we have four more who need forever homes.
I have a pen that is waiting for the day we catch Sly and Sylvia; Jari has agreed to take Caine to socialize as she is good at that. The go-to-sleep meds that the vet tried did not work. We believe that the dogs are staying elsewhere during the day and coming over to the bowls at the exit after dark to eat; this has been seen to be happening by me and others.
I now have Kalija and Princess, I adopted them in January. Jari has Mariah and Vinny, and a couple from north Georgia adopted Polar and sends us pictures of a happy dog regularly.
Update 10-20-08:
Of course, August 21 we rescued Sylvia and the third litter of puppies, seven in all. Three have been adopted, I'm keeping at least one. We are still working on trying to rescue Sly and Caine from the exit, and I still feed them every day. 21 dogs rescued from that exit, all in the same Family, and two more to go. All for the love of one stubborn, very smart dog named Sly. :)
Pictures of Sly:
First ones: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/634648.html
http://soultoad.livejournal.com/635010.html
Others: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/679965.html
Best: http://soultoad.livejournal.com/636520.html