Daisy May's Story Part 1

All day other employees had asked me if I had seen her. A small brown and black dog, really thin, obviously had puppies recently, that no one could get close to. She was hanging around a strip mall and rapidly becoming a dumpster diva extraordinaire. The employees of the stores in the mall had been chasing her out of their trash for several days. The police had had no luck in catching her. Animal control couldn't get near her. A veterinarian had tried a tranquilizer gun and a hot dog laced with tranquilizer -both with the same result - she made it to the corn field at dusk. She wouldn't go near a live trap.

At the time I was working as an order picker, and coffee break gossip revealed that not only did I have dogs, but had been a paddock judge at a greyhound track. They asked for advice about catching her. They were putting food out for her but she wouldn't come within 50 feet of anyone. I was opening the warehouse at 3:30 AM so I would buy a package of hot dogs or bologna and take it with me just in case I spotted her. Sure enough she was running in the parking lot across the street from the warehouse. I parked the Jeep and watched and when she wasn't looking at me, I threw the package of meat as far as I could and then went inside the warehouse and watched what she did. She was very wary, but finally made a dash, grabbed the food, and hauled it to her den-which was a drainage culvert. Every morning I threw food and she got used to the program, I threw it closer and closer to me. I put wormer and vitamins in the food to help her regain her weight, and she began to look better. She even got so she ran out to the jeep when she heard it coming-not the best thing she could do, but we were establishing a relationship. Finally she would come right to the door, and would let me scratch her chin. Other people were feeding her and working on touching her as well, and one day they got a collar on her. The warehouse manager told everyone she could stay in the garage until they found her a home so they put her on a chain and she stayed in the garage, except when some one would take her out to potty.