After TWO AND A HALF YEARS, traveling almost 400 MILES Sadie has been safely captured!!
Sadie’s story began when she got lost on a hunt in 2014 on the West Virginia border. On January 10, 2017 dog control officer for Chenango, NY, Linda Hamilton received a call regarding a dog running with a coyote trap on the right hind leg. Linda set a trap in the area but the dog never returned. The dog had then moved on to the town of Maine, NY. She was trap savvy and any time traps were set the dog would leave the area. People were panicking and chasing the dog causing her to run further and further away, even injured, dragging a trap she was far too fast to be caught. If you think you can out run a dog even an injured dog...think again!
Linda contacted me in February for guidance and we began working closely together over the phone. Linda was so dedicated and passionate about getting this dog too safety. Sightings indicated that she was traveling the pipeline. We found out that she was sleeping under an abandoned bus in the woods, an enclosure was set but but she wanted no part of it and once again was off and running. It was around this time the trap with dogs foot was found by a resident of Maine. The trap was tuned over to the DEC and found to be a legal size coyote trap with no ID on it.
Three weeks went by with no sightings, finally Linda received a call from a shelter that there was a dog being sighted ten miles away in the Endwell/ Endicott, NY area. We quickly got posters up and sightings started pouring in, we confirmed it was our girl. She was traveling the power lines and running fast on three legs. Feeding stations were set up but she would eat and be off again. Mapping her sightings, her loop became clear, she was doing a 3.2 mile loop almost daily through Endicott , Endwell and West Corners. She began showing up repeatedly on a particular property where they were feeding fox and cats. I made the three hour drive up and set up an enclosure trap, she appeared briefly and then later that night she was once again over 3 miles away. We continued to bait the enclosure with the hopes that she would circle back on her loop. Sure enough, two days later at 3:48 am she was on my camera going in to the enclosure. I made the three hour trek back to Endwell, NY and set the enclosure for capture. At 8:14PM June 22, 2017, Sadie’s two and half year epic journey on three legs was finally over.
