CHS recently restored our want ads to service after a long technical outage. We keep things pretty fully focused on the news so sometimes the technology end of things falls down and gets pushed to the side. The CHS Classifieds got back up just in time. Below is a note from a CHS neighbor about how he got his lost dog Lucy back with lots of help from the Capitol Hill community. Thanks for the happy update, Tom! And glad you made it back home, Lucy.

Tom and Lucy

Calling it a perfect storm would be something of an overstatement, but it was quite a confluence of events that led to my miniature dachshund Lucy being lost. I have three dogs. SueKaye is the other miniature dachshund, and the only one I’ve had since she was a puppy. Vida is a chihuahua mix rescued the day before she was to be put down; she went blind a year ago. The three of us were out for a walk the other day, when they found something that they just had to smell right beside an apartment building side exit door.

Lucy has always had a thing about birds, and by “a thing”, I mean they are her sworn enemy. I had her and SueKaye a cheap leash-splitter. And just as a flock of birds landed down the street and Lucy ran hard towards them, the side door opened and slammed shut. The door slamming startled the dogs and me, and possibly also the large shepherd mix that exited in front of it, since that dog immediately lunged at mine aggressively, ever so slightly grazing Vida. This confluence of events resulted in the leash slipper breaking, with Lucy running free to attack the demon birds, SueKaye jumping frantically on my leg to be picked up, and Vida rushing off the sidewalk into the street and traffic.

The big dog and his person walked away quickly, and thankfully the guy in the white car who was driving (fast) down Summit saw Vida and stopped before hitting her. But she was terrified and disoriented, making it difficult to gather her up while cars in the other lane continued to drive and one jackass behind the stopped car deciding that honking was a great idea. By the time I got Vida out of traffic and her and SueKaye both under control again, Lucy was nowhere to be found.

Rushing them up to my nearby apartment, I then began a 2hr search for Lucy – crisscrossing the neighborhood up and down Pike/Pine through all cross streets and the immediate neighboring streets. The search was fruitless, and every person I asked along the way had not seen a small dachshund running loose.

Panicked, I rushed again back to my apartment – posted on the Capitol Hill Blog in their Classifieds, and then tweeted that post out. JSeattle immediately tweeted the post out to his hugely more impressive fan base of followers, Seattlish thankfully retweeted mine to their impressive following, and a number of others on twitter wonderfully also retweeted one of those three tweets. Many on twitter were therefore very quickly informed of Lucy being lost, through twitter and the free CHS Classifieds. Just as I was getting ready to go back out searching, the phone rang.

Lucy had been found! She was wandering around in the Harvard Market QFC, the employees there thankfully caring for her and then taking her upstairs to the Banfield Animal Hospital on the second level. They found me through the CHS Classifieds posting. I screamed with excitement, including a joyful curse word – then went up to get her. They were loving on her, and after apologizing for the exclamation (and curse word), thanked them profusely and welcomed Lucy into my arms. She was happy to be there, expressed with many kisses and an exuberant tail.

With Lucy now returned home, I am so grateful to the support of the community, to QFC and Banfield Animal Hospital for caring for her and then searching me out – but mostly to JSeattle and the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. Three hours after she went missing, and a short one hour after the post and subsequent tweets, she was home. Without the CHS Free Classifieds being available, I hazard to think of where she may be now or what might have happened to her.

I am so grateful to JSeattle for this service being available, and to the community for its support and responsiveness to a call for help. I suspect Lucy is as well, though she isn’t talking. We, and my little dog family of love, are all reunited. Thank you so much.