Another false alarm, but with a silver lining

Mark and Elaine had a dry run today. It was not Raven. Here is the story. At about 2:50 this afternoon, Elaine got a call from a woman who said "We have your dog, she is in our yard and we are feeding her tri-tip, I hope that is OK with her medical condition." She assured her it was, and to keep giving the tri-tip to buy some time. The woman gave a Monte Sereno address and said she had to come to the corner to find a sign to call us. Elaine raced out and called Mark while she was on the way to the car.



A couple of minutes later, the woman called back and said a neighbor was claiming that the dog was hers. Elaine told the woman that she would come see the dog anyway, reported this to Mark, and found that he was already on his way. (Mark had been out walking the Los Gatos trail and looking for Raven for about 4 hours today). Elaine got to the house and was met with three very apologetic people. Evidently the police had been called to help, and they had determined that this dog had tags on it indicating that it lived a few doors down the street. They kept apologizing and Elaine kept thanking them for taking the time to corral these two dogs and to try to find their homes.



Elaine chatted with them for a few minutes, and they told her that the police had DEMANDED to see the tags because they wanted to know if it was "that poodle people have been looking for"!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!

One of the ladies walked Elaine up the street to the neighbor's house, just to see the dog and be absolutely sure it was not Raven. It was a 6-month-old Schnoodle. A young man (Jr High age) in the Schnoodle's house came to the door to find out what was happening, and he was very impressed that he had talked to "the poodle's person". Evidently all the kids at his school are talking about Raven and the $500 reward. WOO HOO! WOO HOO!



Elaine also stopped by Pet Food Express in Los Gatos, where the staff has been doing a great job of getting out the word about Raven. When she was leaving PFE, she had a cell phone call. It was George, a UPS driver in Los Gatos. He told her that he thought he had seen Raven today. She asked him where, and based upon the location, it seems that he also had seen the Schnoodle, found a flyer and called. WOO HOO! WOO HOO! WOO HOO!



So, there is some GOOD awareness out there in all kinds of good places! Now for the funny part. Elaine was there when the woman drove up to pick up the second dog (a chocolate lab) that these kind people had caught (probably using the tri-tip they had planned for dinner) and held for her. She wanted them to clean the mud off of the dog before she put it in her car! One of the people provided a hose, and the other two good Samaritans and Elaine stared on in disbelief. At that point, one of them turned to Elaine and said "You are so grateful and thankful that we called you, AND IT WASN'T EVEN YOUR DOG! She hasn't even said thank you, all she did was demand a bath!" Elaine told them that she hoped Raven would find some very kind people like them, and that they should stock up on tri-tip... ;-)

Bottom line: There are lots of good-hearted people out there, watching for our Raven.

Second bottom line (from Monica): when times are tough, Elaine is an excellent friend to have in your corner!

Tomorrow we are hitting the trails again with Jackie Phillips and her canine tracking team of Dino and Dot. Hopefully we will pick up the trail from the location of Raven's sighting in Campbell on Sunday. We would really like to get an idea if Raven is still nearby, or if we should focus the search elsewhere....



OH-- one more bit of good news, Craig Herrera, NBC Bay Area Meteorologist, has agreed to show Raven's photo and help us publicize her loss. Craig does the very early morning broadcast, and we may get bumped a day given the news events, but we are very hopeful that this TV exposure will be a help in getting more people to learn about Raven. As always, fingers crossed!