Hello Folks,

warning: I'm getting feeble minded, I'll probably babble....

I'm going completely crazy right now. My Terra girl is missing.  If you are a member, you can read more of her story under my profile.  Also see where we live at my website:
www.hickoryspurfarm.com    It will answer lots of questions.
There are photos of her on some of the threads. Sacked out Shorthairs for sure.

On Tuesday evening, 6/24/2008, at about 6:15 pm, Terra, Sunshine and my new dog were in the front yard.
Oh, the new dog. On Thursday, 6/19/08, I adopted another dog from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control. They said he was a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon (WHPG). I read up on them on the net and they seem like great dogs so I adopted him. Sunshine and Terra were working out very well so....  The new guy, Winston, had gone missing Sunday night and was gone until Monday evening when he was found keeping my neighbor's cat up in a tree.  All 3 went out after some critter right at dark on Sunday night. Terra & Sunshine came back in a short time Winston doesn't know his way around so he got lost. Winston was/is fitting in pretty good.

So back to Tuesday night, I went inside with Winston(the WHPG) to put my long pants and boots on so I could take everyone for a walk on the mountainside. I came back out and Terra and Sunshine were gone. Oh well, they do this fairly often and always come back. Lately, they had been coming back after a short while rather than many hours later. Winston and I walked around. Still no Terra or Sunshine. Nor were they back at about 2:00 am when I finally went to bed. They sometimes stay out all night but are back in the morning. I'd rather they were home when I went to bed. Wednesday comes and goes, still no Terra or Sunshine. At 7:00 am on Thursday morning Sunshine came back.  He's clean and dry and not full of thorns. We have lots of multiflora rose, wild blackberry and other thorny plants. They normally come back with loads of thorns stuck in them. Terra regularly has several small thorns in her head. Still no Terra. Thursday night it rains. Friday morn, no Terra. Saturday morn, still no Terra. 4 nights without Terra now. Night 5 coming up.

Since I have lots of photos of her, I made up a Lost Dog poster. The first version had both Sunshine and Terra on it. Now just Terra. She has a registered AVID microchip. I have been to the county animal control twice. I've put up the Lost Dog posters all over the place and have checked with people who live near by. No one has seen her. Then on Friday night, I was talking to someone who thought he might have seen her in Walnut. He had seen my poster in the post office. I went to Walnut (a very small town nearby or collection of houses actually). I talked to two other people who thought they saw her. So I covered Walnut. I think the sightings were of a big chococlate lab/put bull mix dog that lived next to the cemetery where the sightings were. I talked to the people that owned that dog.  But who knows?  Terra is scheduled to be in the weekly local newspaper on Wednesday. We live in a very rural area so the newspaper only comes out once a week. Asheville, NC is the big town nearby and has a daily paper.

I was reading the thread today titled    Is This Normal   about GSP's being so cuddly. I think of the times Terra has laid next to me in bed. I'm on my back, she puts her head on my chest. Or, I'm laying on my back with my arm out the side and she is laying there with her head on my bicep. We fall asleep.  Or all the times she wants to have her nose about 2 inches from my nose. Or she lays on her back on the bed and wiggles around wanting her chest rubbed. I call her wiggle worm or MIss Wiggles. In fact, she was laying next to me on Tuesday afternoon when I was napping. We sleep on a queen size futon mattress on the floor - a left over habit from my old dog who was not able to get up on the bed any longer due to old age (she was Moon). Or the times where she has laid next to me with her legs and chest against me like she was hugging me.

I can't imaging Terra not wanting to come home eventually. I hope she didn't feel slighted when I brought home the new dog. They seemed to be getting along fairly well. She would growl to keep the new guy away from me when I was sleeping or if he was being rambuncious towards me. I did take the new guy to the vet Tuesday mid-day for a first checkup. I left Terra and Sunshine at home - its summer, the car gets hot. All the other times Terra would come home from a long or short run she would be all glad to see me. She would lean against me and want petted, which I was glad to do.

Terra and Sunshine had been acting very good since I brought Winston (the new guy) home. Sunshine and Winston would lead the way when we all went walking while Terra stayed with me. Terra was (is) funny about that. On the leash, she leads the way, not pulling bad but leading the way. I walk her on her leash when we are staying at our city house in Charlotte. When at the farm and she is loose, she either takes off with Sunshine and I don't see them for a good while or, she walks right on my heals. Several times I have kicked her in the chin (not hard, by accident) with the back of my foot while walking she was so close. Lately she had been staying right with me during our walks. I've been kind of worried about that in it seems like she doesn't get enough exercise walking beside me.  After working with Terra last fall with a rope and her ecoller (mainly the beeper), she had gotten pretty good about coming when called. Even if she went after critters, she was staying close by and would come back quickly.

The bright spots - gotta think of something good:
Everyone I've talked to about seeing her or if I can put up the Lost Dog poster at their business or at the county animal control or newspaper has been really nice and wishing me that I find her. I've also talked to several of my neighbors who I hadn't met before or people I was aquainted with but didn't know where they lived or what they did for work.  Also, I have been able to spend some time with Winston (the new guy, WHPG), especially Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Sunshine is now bonding with Winston. They get along pretty good except at dinner time - Sunshine wants to eat Winston's dinner too. Winston lets him.

As someone was saying on another thread, enjoy every minute you have with your dogs. You never know when they will be taken from you. Probably when you least expect it. Losing Terra was the last thing I had been thinking of here lately. I have black raspberries and blueberries to pick. I don't want to be worrying about Terra.

Thank you, I'm just going crazy. Give me a pillow to shred or something to chew up.

       where is the icon for SCREAM !!!!

Have you contacted the GSP Rescue gal in NC in case she hears about your Tessa?  Her name is Judith and you can find her contact info at www.gsprescue.org and click on contact us.

Deb Orpen, Pittsburgh PA

I gotta bite my tongue hugely here; what on earth?  You allow the dogs to just roam around, and hope they come home by 2AM, or before you go to bed?  So many scenerios run thru my head. SECURITY is first, because if you love these dogs, their safety should be utmost.  What you have created here is trust, or breach there of...after all these are only dogs!  She could have taken off after prey, be out there totally miscombobulated on where home is?  Maybe she's injured, just hopeing you will find her?  Maybe she was picked up and is curled up on someone else's couch, them thinking "whatta GREAT find!".  YOU MUST NEVER GIVE UP IF YOU LOVE THAT DOG.  I will help you, best I can from the distance, but you have to be ready to put in the time and leg work.  Email me:  lisa_gsprescuewi@yahoo.com

Terra didn't have her collar on. She had lost 2 of her collars last summer, the first one had her license and rabies tag on it. I have to tighter one now that just has her rabies tag on it (bolted, not dangling). I ususally put it on her when we are going out but not just to go into the front yard. Sunshine lost his first collar last summer too. He has been keeping his since but he did come back one time with it really loosened up. I'm thinking he got it caught on something. So I have mixed feelings about having a collar on them.

I had another reported sighting of her on Sunday. Actually the sighting was from Thursday, the report was on Sunday. This one seems more credible though. It is also in a more likely place for her to be - at least in my mind. It was near the river which she knows has water to drink.

All the terrible things that could have happened to her have gone through my mind. Bear, rattle snake, just going off a cliff, poison, you name it. Just spraining her muscles even.

This morning I also was thinking that if no one has taken her in, hopefully she has caught some mice or rabbits to eat. (gotta think positive)

Well, I put up or passed out a bunch more posters today. I canvased the area where there was the reported sighting. Got two more reports there. The credibility on these didn't seem to be as good to me as the original report I got on Sunday. One guy kept saying it was a black dog but that could have just been the light and distance. It was the same location though. The other report was kind of confusing although the guy was spot on about what he told me about another lost dog. He also pointed me to the owner of that other lost dog and she pretty much confirmed his story without me bring it up to her. I'm not sure what to think here.

My conclusion is that Terra probably was not initally dog napped or anything. I think they went up on the mountain chasing critters, probably deer but maybe coyote or a bear. The mountain behind my place is at the end of a long ridge that runs to the southwest. I suspect they, or mostly just Terra, followed the critter along that ridge and came down in a section of the county called Little Pine or even PawPaw.  (the "neighborhoods" around here are mainly named after the watershed they are in. I'm at the mouth of Big Pine. It is big country) I suspect Terra came down from the ridge somewhere that she wasn't familiar with and didn't know where to go.

I keep asking Sunshine where Terra is but he won't say. Cat must have his tongue. On Thursday and Friday evening last week, I took Sunshine and the new guy up on the mountain and told them to take me to Terra. It appeared to just be a wild goose chase. On Friday evening I did think to get Terra's collar and put it to their noses and said to find Terra.  On Thursday evening they had me practically running up the mountain after them. Talk about exercise!

Oh, I don't just kick these dogs out the door in the morning and tell them to go have fun while I go do something else. I could do that with Sunshine as he just hangs out on the carport, especially if Terra is inside. Terra stays inside a lot since I know she is prone to go chasing critters when out with Sunshine. However, I do let them both out when I'm going to be out there with them. I do trust Terra to stay in the front yard in this scenario when I go inside briefly. Both tend to want to come inside with me often and get biscuits. They both do the lay in the sun until hot and then move to the shade thing. There are also two dirt areas next to the carpet on the carport that they like to lay in, especially Sunshine. They don't stay out over night very often. I can only think of two times prior to the current, uh, uh, situation. Both were when we drove up the farm from our house in Charlotte. 3 hour drive. I travel at night for less traffic and no hot sun beating down on the dogs while they are in the car. We normally get to the farm between midnight and 1 am. They are so excited to be at the farm where they can do lots of running around so I let them go get it out of their system. I guess you could say I am excited to be at the farm too since I normally stay up until 3 or 4 am on these nights. When the dogs get back, they want breakfast and then go to bed.  Once we've been here, I take them out on supervised walks up on the mountain off leash, normally in the evening but also for shorter ones at other times depending on what is going on. Sometimes they bolt, especially in summer 2007. The ecollar training has really reduced Terra's bolting when out with me. In fact, I'd say that from the time that we came up with Winston on 6/19 until they took off on the 24th, they were behaving the best that they ever have.  This is getting to long......

I really, really hope you find your dog.  My thoughts are with you.

Hello All,

Terra is still missing. It will be 2 weeks tonight, Tues 7/8/08. She took off on 6/24/08. I talked to someone yesterday who said he had seen her right in his yard (pointed to spot) about a week ago or so. I'm guessing it was about Thurs 6/26 as the other possible sighting in that area was on that date. This got my hopes up so I checked with all the houses in that area. The sighter even told me some places to go with mobile homes/houses tucked in that are not obvious. Nothing.

I made up a web page for Terra with lots of color photos of her. I wanted to get that done before I sent out the 32 letters to local vets, animal hospitals and such. I got a list from Home Again. I gave a copy of the Lost Dog poster to the sherriff's dept. I knew they would not be making patrols just to look for her but was hoping they would post it so the deputies might see it and have it in the back of their mind. Well, the dispatch woman made a photo copy for all the deputies. Expectations exceeded !

Terra's web page:  www.hickoryspurfarm.com/Missing_Terra.htm
There is also a link on the home page of HickorySpurFarm.com
All the photos were taken in 2008. The last 3 were from June 3rd.

Yep, I'm going nuts. She is basically my child, much more so than my other dogs.  I have not human kids.

 (fixed url - I wondered why it didn't turn blue)

Hello,

Just wanted to update the url.  There was an extra space in there at the beginning that prevented it from being copied and pasted.  Good luck with finding your Terra!

-James

www.hickoryspurfarm.com/Missing_Terra.htm

oooh, oooh,

Possible sighting on Saturday, 4 days ago.

Thanks for noticing the url was spaced out.

John and I have been going thru this with topographical maps, etc....I STILL feel she's staying with the river.  It supplies her everything she needs.  Are there properties on that river, and maybe someone that keeps feeding her, keeping her from finding her way home now?  I think you are doing everything you can to bring Terra home John.  Your property is beautiful, akin to heaven on earth in my mind!