What Raven might look like now

We are coming up on a month that Raven is missing now. We have no new sightings since two weekends ago at the Campbell Farmer's Market. It's depressing and we are dealing with the sort of coming out of shock and coming to terms with the idea that we may never see Raven again. Then again, just today, on the mailing list, someone posted a story about a dog who was lost for three months and then got reconnected with its people. So there is hope, but it's impossible to know what will happen.

What we do know is that if and when Raven is found, she will not look like the nice photographs we've got posted at right, but instead like the rescue poodle pictured at left. Poodles have hair - not fur and they do not shed. Instead, their hair keeps growing and growing and they get shaggier and shaggier. The only way their coat stays a reasonable length is through grooming and cuting/shaving. Raven's coat was already at the long side of the spectrum when she was lost - that was about three months of growth (from the shaved-to-velvet baseline) and she will now be at four months and counting. The hair is also very fine, so it tends to get matted when it gets wet, which is also likely.

The poodle in this photograph is not Raven. I'm not sure who this dog is, actually, but the photo was contributed by Susan Wilson who does volunteer work with Bay Area Poodle Rescue as an example of what lost poodles look like upon being claimed at a shelter. They look like sheepdogs or something similar; so different in fact that people may not realize they are poodles unless they have a photo like this for reference.

So - if you see a female dog that looks like this one down in the Los Gatos Creek, or in a shelter, please give us a call. We miss our baby very much.

Mark