The Search for Lilly

John, on the left, Lilly, and John's partner, Mark, holding Lilly during their happy reunion.

Lilly escaped from John when two Rottweilers knocked down their owner to get to John's dogs.  Lilly and John's other dog both backed out of their collars to get away from the Rottweilers, leaving John holding two empty leashes.  John was able to catch one of his dogs, but Lilly was too frightened to come to him.  During morning rush hour on Thursday in downtown Seattle, Lilly raced up the Seneca Street off ramp, onto the Viaduct.  Lilly ran south in the northbound lanes, and traffic came to a halt as people tried to get her to safety.  At last report, Lilly had run all the way past Starbucks, toward the West Seattle Bridge.

When John called me Thursday afternoon, I told him I wasn't available for a search, and that I wouldn't advise a search dog in this situation.  For one thing, he didn't have a scent article for just Lilly, but the biggest problem was that I couldn't start Kelsy on the scent trail on the freeway in downtown Seattle.  On Friday, John got more detail about the sighting near the West Seattle Bridge, and he again asked for a search.  I advised him that the search was unlikely to be successful given the contaminated scent article, the subfreezing weather, the lack of a specific starting point, and industrial nature of the area--all paved over with almost no vegetation.  John said he understood it was a long shot, but that he wanted to try it anyway.  I agreed to meet him on Saturday morning.

Kelsy started searching south of the turn off for the West Seattle bridge, where the elevated portion of 99 comes back down to surface level.  Kelsy didn't find any scent of Lilly at that location.  Next, we tried a spot on the shoulder of the freeway, across the railroad tracks from the Starbucks headquarters building.  Kelsy did find the scent there, but she wanted to follow the scent onto the freeway, southbound in the northbound lanes, which we couldn't do.  Then we went to the next location where the elevated roadway touched down, all the way across the West Seattle Bridge at the Delridge Way on ramp.  As we were getting ready to start the search there, John received a call that someone had found a dog matching Lilly's description. I never heard the story of how they captured Lilly, but they found her owner through his craigslist ad. 

We got to Tullys as fast as we could, and John's partner, Mark, had gotten there first.  He was holding Lilly, who was very relieved to be safe.  Lilly had run two miles on the freeway against traffic, and she had been out in subfreezing weather for two nights.  Even though Kelsy didn't solve this case, I was very happy to witness the reunion of John and Mark and Lilly.