11 INSTRUCTIONS

I dressed in the dark, throwing on the same yoga pants, T-shirt, and sweatshirt I’d been wearing. If Babs wanted my scent spread in one spot, this would surely help. No one else stirred, not even Percival—usually so happy to wake and demand belly rubs when anyone opens their eyes.

Thermos filled with black coffee in hand, I headed back to Via La Paloma.

The streets were quiet, with only a few cars out. Were people headed to work? I’d already forgotten what day it was. Thursday? Friday? I had canceled all appointments for the week, so I no longer had a work schedule to keep me on track. But Poppy had been missing for two nights, I knew that much. This was the third day—so Thursday. Third’s a charm? Could that apply here? So tired.

I parked my car at the end of the cul-de-sac. Any neighbor paying attention would likely assume I’d spent the night there, and I couldn’t help but feel I should have. I should have been doing something. Anything. Anything but sleeping in a warm, dry bed, while Poppy was lost in the cold, wet wilderness.

The boulder still seemed like the best spot to sit, so I again spread a blanket over the rock and another across my lap. I had grabbed the bag of chicken from the refrigerator at home, though cold it didn’t seem to have the same wafting odor. That was good for me, but not so good for luring Poppy. I should have warmed it up at home. I opened it and set the bag down beside me. And then I waited.

And waited.

Everything was damp. The air was misty, and the sun rose slowly through the shrouded sky. I couldn’t check the warming station until the sun was up and the humans were moving about—that would be the point at which Poppy was unlikely to appear. In the meantime, I was to sit and wait for her to appear. Babs had assured me Poppy would see me long before I’d see her. She could be watching me now, deciding whether to come out, whether she was ready to come home.

Come on out, baby. Come on, my little Popstar. Let’s go home. It’s okay, sweetie, please come on out.

If I think it hard enough, can I make it happen? Sure, right. Like life ever works like that.

This was a tough little dog. She’d already survived so much. And I knew she was wily—quick, smart, able to maneuver away or around any obstacle. I still believed she was out there, in that canyon somewhere. I had to believe that.

My dad texted me, saying good morning—it was 7:30 in Missouri. By then, he’d been up for hours too, I knew. He’d begun communicating mostly by text a few years ago when his hearing started going and phone calls got more difficult. Now that he was in a different time zone, texting had another advantage, since Dad was a very early morning person and I was a very late-night person.

Dad’s text asked why I hadn’t texted him lately. He probably had not expected me to reply so quickly, but I did. I told him about Poppy missing.

“You’ll find her,” he replied.

Encouraging, even though I knew that he, of course, had no way of knowing what the outcome would be. At least he wasn’t telling me I was crazy, or talking about coyotes.

“I hope so.”

“You will. Poor thing. You’ll find her.”

I wasn’t sure if Poppy or I was the “poor thing.” “We’ll look as long as we have to,” I texted back.

“Good. Keep me posted.”

For not the first time, I was reminded how dogs were the thing my family members had most in common. This would be a time I could count on my family’s support and encouragement, though no one was close enough to physically help. All of us were dog lovers. All of us connected with dogs, and we’d always had dogs, every one of us, during every stage of our lives. With all the marriages and divorces in my immediate family, I’d often joked that we didn’t have a family tree so much as family groundcover. We spread out and expanded haphazardly but had no deep roots or sturdy branches. The common ground we did have, though, was dogs. It helped to know Dad was rooting for me, for Poppy.

As the sun rose, the neighbors came out walking their own dogs. Soon, cars left their driveways, lights were on, and the day began. I walked the trail up to where I’d left the warming box the night before. I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to find. What to even hope for? Poppy curled up sleeping in the box? That seemed unlikely.

Before I reached the warming station, I could see that the blanket I’d left had been pulled out and dragged about eight feet away. The fabric steak toy had also been taken out and dropped in the middle of the trail. By Poppy? How would I know? Poppy’s habit was to take toys under my bed with her. She had a stash of under-bed toys in both Riverside and Paso Robles. She also had several of my shoes, shredded beyond repair, under the bed with her. While the wilderness park was a different environment altogether, it still seemed to me Poppy would have taken the toy with her to wherever she’d made her den. She’d take it under her new bed, so to speak.

The thought of that brought me fleeting comfort—Poppy, safe in a den, with a familiar toy for comfort. Only the toy was at my feet, not with my girl. I picked up the steak toy, shredded and wet, and walked to the box. The chicken was gone, of course, but there was no calling card to tell me whom I’d fed. No thank-you note. No request for seconds. I picked up the box and the blanket and brought them all back to my car.

I called Babs to let her know what I’d found.

“Do you have the trail camera set up?” She said.

The trail camera! “No. I forgot about that. I don’t have one.”

“Okay, yeah. Okay, well, the warming box isn’t much use without the trail camera. You’ve got to get a trail camera and get that positioned so you can see the warming box. Then you’ll know if she makes an appearance or if it’s just coyotes. Remember, we’re trying to find out where she’s staying. Dogs like patterns. She’ll settle into a pattern.”

I didn’t understand “trail camera” when she had said it to me the day before. Was this like an infrared camera? Night goggles? I must have just dropped the idea from my brain when I couldn’t make sense of it.

“I don’t know what that is or where to get one,” I said. Also, my dog is missing, and I don’t have time for shopping! I held that comment in. I was exhausted and she was helping me. I knew better than to let my frustration show.

“I’ll text you a photo of what you need. Any sporting goods store will have it. Or Walmart. Possibly even a Best Buy.”

These are not stores I frequent. I suspect my entering a sporting goods store would set off alarms, the same way my straying over to the petite section of a clothing store would. Alarm! Alarm! Does Not Belong! Stranger Danger! Does Not Belong! That is also what happens when I go to family get-togethers. Luckily, none of these things happen often.

The text came through. The trail camera looked like a toy: a 4" x 6" plastic rectangle covered in an army green camouflage print, with a hole—presumably the lens—at the top front and army green canvas straps to affix the camera to a tree or something on the “trail.” The camera was motion activated and, as I could see by the packaging, used by hunters. Great. But I could see clearly how it would help in the search for Poppy. If I had strapped the camera to a nearby tree, pointed at the warming box, I would have known if I had made a sacrificial chicken offering to Poppy or to the coyotes. I would know if Poppy was sticking around this area. I would possibly know if she was still alive.

I had failed.

“It’s alright. There’s time,” Babs said. “She’s out there. Just get the camera today and we’ll do it again tonight. What are you going to do now?”

“I thought I’d drive around a bit, look for her.”

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t look for her?”

“You won’t see her. Remember, you need to think like a dog. Think like Poppy. Think of it from her point of view. She’ll be hiding. Especially if you’re out driving around. Remember, she’s frightened. Do you have any volunteer help today?”

“Yes. Six or eight people, I think. Maybe ten. Beagle Freedom Project is sending people. We’re meeting at my office at ten.”

“Great. That’s good. But you’ve got to get control of the people. Make sure they understand what we’re doing. Get lots and lots and lots of flyers made. Divide up the neighborhood around the wilderness park—miles around it if you can—and send people out plastering the neighborhoods with flyers. Get eyes on the flyers. I’ll send you a diagram of how and where to hang the flyers so they get seen.”

“Okay. I can do that. I’ll get my office printing more flyers and I’ll get a trail camera.”

“Good. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

This explained why I felt like I’d ran twenty-six miles. Poppy had already been lost for over thirty-six hours. Wasn’t that already more than a marathon? I didn’t want to ask Babs what her timeline for “marathon” was. Days? Weeks? Months? It didn’t matter. She had no way of knowing how long this particular marathon would run. And what if we never knew the ending? What if there was no victory tapeline to run through? No. Can’t think that. Poppy’s out there.

I texted Jessica with the photo of the trail camera, asking her to search for where we could buy one. “And print more flyers.”

“More?” She texted back.

“Lots more.”

Chris, Roe, and Percival were awake and fed by the time I got back home. I made some coffee and toast while I brought Chris up to speed.

“I printed out the map of the neighborhood and divided up the areas to assign to people. I’ll print a few more. Are most of them coming in from LA?” Chris said.

“Some local—Cecilia’s coming back. And I think Maria is close by. And Austin and Jessica of course. But BFP staff folks are all coming from LA. That’s why we said 10:00 A.M.”

By the time we arrived at my office Chris had printed out maps for each neighborhood area to be assigned, and made one large map (twelve 8.5" x 11" pages printed and taped together) that he taped to one of the large white erase boards in my conference room.

I wrote the office Wi-Fi password, my cell phone number, and Chris’s cell phone number on the other white erase board, next to the map. As each volunteer came in, they wrote their name and cell phone number on the board. We were a strong, dedicated, and now organized team.

Bob and Brian, dads to BFP beloved beagles Abe and Davey, were among the first to arrive. They knew what I was going through. It was their Davey who’d been lost for a harrowing twelve hours shortly after his arrival at their home. I remembered that time well. Those hours had felt like days while the poor dog was missing, and I only had been watching the news unfold on the private Facebook page for BFP Fosters and Adopters. It was wonderful of them to “pay it forward” by coming out to help with the search for Poppy.

Cecilia and Maria, another BFP adopter, arrived soon after, adding their names and numbers to the white board.

Jessica and Austin were each on phones calling Walmarts, Big 5, and Bass sporting goods stores, with apparently no luck. The printers whirred and spat out flyers near each of them, as the coffeemaker spit out cup after cup of coffee.

Aaron arrived, ready to help again, and this time his wife, Deia, was with him.

This was truly a community of dog rescuers, helping one another whenever possible.

I grabbed two boxes of clear plastic sheet covers—the same ones we use to put clients’ estate planning documents in before placing them in a binder for safekeeping.

“Thank you, guys, all for being here. We’re waiting on the BFP staff people and they’re on their way. In the meantime, I have a craft project for you. We need to put the flyers in these sheet covers to keep ’em dry. Put the opening at the bottom so the rain doesn’t get in. Then tape the bottom closed when you hang it. Here’s the instructions for how and where to place flyers.” I handed out copies of Babs’s placement diagrams.

At first, it seemed odd that Babs needed to give us instructions on hanging flyers. Just find a surface and tape, right? Wrong. She had detailed instructions for not just how but where to hang the flyers—how to get the most eyes on the flyers in the shortest amount of time. (I learned later that the flyers and instructions were actually Mike’s.) Find neighborhood ingress and egress points and tape the flyers on poles at each corner of the intersection. Be sure to place them at eye level of someone in a car—not your eye level as you’re standing. Lower. Find public group mailboxes and post there. If it’s a cul-de-sac, post at the entry and at the end, you don’t have to post along every light post. Post in Starbucks, fast-food places, grocery stores, anywhere there are lots of people. Get eyes on the flyer so the entire town is watching for this dog.

“This makes so much sense,” Cecilia said.

“It does. Babs also suggested that if you see people out walking or can talk to anyone at the stores, have them take a photo of the flyer with their cell phone so they have the information. People will toss the flyers away, but the photo will stay on their phone. If we make it convenient for them, they’re more likely to help,” I said.

“Another great idea,” Cecilia said.

Finally, all the way in from Los Angeles after a two-plus hour drive in the pouring rain, the BFP staff team arrived—this time it was Matt, Megan, and Nataly—bringing snacks, boxes of color flyers already printed, and boxes of supplies. They had tape, staple guns, markers, pens, and neon poster boards.

As everyone worked stuffing flyers and making posters, Chris took over to explain the maps and the various neighborhoods.

Teams of two—Bob and Brian, Aaron and Deia, Cecilia and Maria, Megan and Nataly, and Chris and I—chose the neighborhoods they’d each be canvasing.

“We can stuff these as we go,” Deia said, grabbing a stack of flyers and sheet covers. “Let’s get out there.”

I knew the feeling. Sitting in an office conference room, like sitting in my car or even sitting on that boulder, did not feel like we were helping Poppy. The instinct to head out walking and searching is strong. But I had to trust in Babs. She’d done this hundreds of times. I had to trust in the process. At least she had a process.

“That’s fine. Take enough flyers and go. We have to remember the idea is to get thousands of eyes looking out for Poppy so we can figure out her patterns. If you hand out all the flyers or just want a break, find somewhere high on the perimeter of the park and sit to watch for her. Just sit.” I hoped I had gotten that part right. I’d gotten so much wrong; I was doubting everything I thought.

“Don’t chase her if you see her. Just call Teresa. Let her know where you spotted Poppy and what direction she’s headed,” Chris added.

Yes, that. That was the important part. But I saw more than one sideways glance. And I understood that too. It would be very hard to spot the missing beagle and not try to catch her. Even with all of Babs’s coaching, I knew it would be hard for me to restrain myself. But I also knew how fast Poppy was, her gymnastic abilities to leap and twist and sail through the air, and I knew how fearful she still was. She would not likely be caught by human hands. Babs was right.

The teams, except for Matt, Chris, and I, set out to their neighborhoods, fully stacked with supplies, snacks, and water.

Matt and Chris worked on taping “LOST DOG” and my cell phone number on an eight-foot-wide bright blue tarp using wide white tape to spell out the letters. Matt then placed a large laminated photo of Poppy in the middle, taped on with the same white tape.

“We’ll put this on a freeway overpass if we can. Or a wall or fence somewhere near the park. A freeway sign is how we eventually found Davey,” Matt said.

“It’s a great way of doing it. Hard not to notice that,” I said.

“She’s so cute,” Matt said.

Walking away now. Not going to cry. She is really stinking cute. I went to my desk to order the trail camera on Amazon since it didn’t seem Jessica and Austin were having any luck. There’s an Amazon distribution center very nearby, so who knew, perhaps I could get same-day delivery. I also needed to return a few emails and keep my office running, or at least staggering along. Once I finished with that, I posted an update on the search for Poppy to Facebook and Instagram, asking for more volunteers. As I hit “post,” Jessica came to my doorway.

“We found a trail camera, but it’s in Cerritos. We looked it up and it will take us about forty-five minutes to get there.”

“If that’s the closest one, go.” I handed her a credit card.

“It’s $80 and we still need to get the memory card and batteries.”

“I’ll get the card and batteries; you guys get the camera. We need it ready to go by dusk.”

No sooner did Jessica leave than my phone rang. I had a moment of “Someone saw Poppy” excitement, since my cell phone number was now plastered throughout Riverside, but then I saw it was Babs.

“You need to change your Facebook post.”

“Why?” I was trying not to whine. I just wanted to find my dog. “We still need more people helping.”

“You asked people to search. We don’t want people out there walking around.”

“I thought I just said ‘help.’ ” And really, was anyone parsing the language of my post? And yet I knew that anyone who wanted to help would think that meant actively walking around looking for Poppy. That’s what I had thought ‘help’ meant too.

“It says ‘search.’ Just take it down and post that she’s still lost. If anyone sees her they should call you. Make sure they don’t chase her. Even calling out to her will scare her. Imagine a bunch of strangers walking toward you calling your name. It’s scary. Especially if you were lost.”

I dropped my head into my hand, elbow resting on my desk. “You’d think I’d know this by now. I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

“I know. It’s okay. Get some volunteers out to post flyers. If people want to help, that’s what they can do.”

“A bunch of them went out just a bit ago.”

“Good. What are you doing now?”

She asked me this often, and I was usually doing the wrong thing. I hesitated before answering. No time for ego—I had to find this dog.

“Fixing my Facebook post?”

“Good. Then what?”

“I’ve got to pick up posters at the printer and get a memory card and batteries for the trail camera. We found one.”

“Good. Then you need to go home and sleep. I’m sure you haven’t been sleeping, and we need you rested.”

Rest. Ha! “I haven’t, but I don’t think I can nap while everybody else is out walking the neighborhoods.”

“That’s exactly when you need to sleep. Here’s the thing—you’re the night shift. The volunteers will usually only be available during the day, and eventually they will lose interest and drop off. You’ll have to keep going. Sleep now while you can.”

Would they drop off? Would I keep going? How long could I keep going? The BFP people are devoted to these rescued dogs, but everyone has their own life and jobs and commitments. I’d probably have volunteers helping at least through the weekend—two, maybe three more days. Even Chris couldn’t stay past Saturday. He had to be back at work Sunday afternoon—there was no one available to cover his shift in the winery tasting room. Would anyone be back on Monday? And how long could I stay out of my office? One day at a time. I’d have to take this one day at a time. Maybe by Monday we won’t need any more volunteers.

Matt and Chris had finished the tarp sign—large, bright, and magnificently, brilliantly, waterproof—and Matt headed out to find a place to hang it.

“Babs is right,” Chris said. “I’ll go get the memory card and batteries, and whatever other running around needs to be done and you go home and sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” I said.

“You have to. You can’t keep going like this.”

“It’s only been two days. I can keep going if I have to. And we’re supposed to cover that neighborhood.” I pointed to the map on the white board, and the section we’d agreed to cover.

“I’ll go there. I can cover it. You need to rest.”

I knew he was right. Babs was right. Everybody was right. “Okay. I’ll go home for a bit. It just feels weird to do that. Wrong somehow.”

“We’ll all be sleeping when you’re sitting watch tonight.”

“I hope not. I hope we find her by then.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

At home I contemplated a shower before a nap and went into the bathroom. I first set my cell phone on the sink, then moved it closer to the shower—the top of the toilet tank. I turned the volume up. But when I turned the water on it seemed possible I wouldn’t hear the phone ring over the sound of the water, or maybe I just wouldn’t get to it in time. I turned the water off and returned to the bedroom. I couldn’t risk such a stupid screw-up. My stink was part of the rescue plan, anyway.

I tossed and turned in bed, unable to block images of Poppy being chased by coyotes, running into the busy highways nearby, falling into the raging creek, or any number of horrid scenarios. I tried to think of her home, safe, curled up on the pillow next to my head as she’d been doing since soon after I brought her home. I wanted nothing more than to have Poppy back home, safe on this bed with me.

I had not allowed myself to think about anything after Poppy was back—where she would go then. Jessica was not likely to still want to adopt her, and BFP was not likely to allow her to (an escape artist dog is not an apartment dog). I couldn’t think about that.

Roe curled up on the bed with me, and Percival lounged on the dog bed we called his “cloud bed.” It was huge and fluffy and had a “hood” (a blanket attached on three sides) that he frequently burrowed under, leaving just the tip of his nose exposed, and sometimes not even that. I petted Roe and he stretched out gratefully and turned over on his back for belly rubs.

“You’re a good boy, Roe-Roe. A very good boy.” I rubbed his belly and choked back tears on instinct. But there was no reason for holding back tears, I realized. Home alone with just the dogs, I could let go and cry. Dogs were such understanding creatures. And I suspected Roe missed his little buddy, too.

---

I returned to my office at half past 2:00 P.M. Matt had come back from hanging the tarp and posting flyers.

“I went in the Nature Center and asked if I could hang the tarp sign on the building facing that busy road, but they said no. I shouldn’t have asked!” Matt said.

“What’s the expression—easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission? Something like that.”

“Exactly. But I hung it on the fence. Still facing the street, just not up as high as I would have liked.”

“That’s still good. Thanks.”

Matt was making a second, smaller sign. Chris had returned with the printed posters, the memory card, and the batteries. Jessica and Austin returned from Cerritos with the trail camera.

The camera still looked like a toy to me. But a complicated one. Austin offered to get it set up and I gladly agreed. I handed him the bag with the memory card and batteries.

Chris and I went to the conference room to look at the maps.

“Any word from anyone?” Chris said.

“Aaron and Deia are hiking out to the spot he was in yesterday to watch for her. They covered their area. But that’s all I’ve heard.”

Chris wrapped me in his arms and pulled me in close. “We’ll find her. It’s going to take time, but we’ll find her.”

I wiggled away from him. “I don’t know. I hope so. But look at this,” I pointed to the enormous map on the white board. “It’s huge. She’s this little, tiny, scared dog.”

“She’s smart, though. And you said yourself that she was quick and got away from you easily.”

“Me, yes. I’m hardly as quick as a coyote.”

“We’ve got to stay positive.”

For most of our relationship, this was our thing. Chris stayed positive and I sunk into all the bad things that could happen. Still, I think of myself not so much as a pessimist as a realist. That shit can happen. That shit did happen.

“Okay. We should head out to our area.” I scanned the map. “We’re going back to the street where she entered the park, right?”

“That seems our best bet at this point. But I want to hike into the canyon again and sit near where we think the homeless encampment is.”

“Show me where that is on this map so I can try to get oriented.”

Chris circled a spot on the map. The homeless camp was southeast of where Poppy had first run into the wilderness park, and, not surprisingly, not close to any of the surrounding neighborhood housing.

“Okay, that’s not as close as I thought.”

“She may not have settled in yet.”

“Show me on the map where she was when the GPS tracker battery died?”

Chris drew another dot. This one was north of where she’d entered the park. No pattern yet. No clear trail.

My phone rang. I answered quickly.

“It’s Nataly. We just talked to a guy who says he saw Poppy this morning sitting on his neighbor’s lawn!”

“What? He saw her?”

Chris turned from the map to me, eyes wide. Matt looked up from the floor where he’d been squatting to finish another sign.

“Yes! He’s pretty sure it was her. He said it was about 6:00 A.M. this morning. She was sitting on the neighbor’s lawn barking toward their front door. He says that neighbor has dogs, so she was probably barking at those dogs.”

“We’ve never heard her bark. Did you talk to the neighbor?”

“We’re headed over there now. Here’s the address…”

I wrote the address on a scrap of paper. “Okay. We’ll be right over. See if you can get the name and phone number of the guy you’re talking to and of the neighbor at the house where she was spotted.”

We ended the call and I looked at Chris. “She’s still alive.”

“Yes!” Chris hugged me again, and this time I didn’t wiggle away.

“Here’s the address. We should head over. Show me on the map where that is.”

When Chris showed me, most of my hope and excitement evaporated.

“She would have had to cross Alessandro Boulevard to get to that neighborhood. That wasn’t her.”

“She could have done it in the middle of the night. And look,” he pointed to the far eastern end of the map, “if she went all the way across the wilderness park and came out down here, she crosses over in a less populated part of Alessandro and is right back in wilderness. Then she comes out here and is in that neighborhood.”

He had drawn a trail that seemed both incredibly far and unlikely. At least to me. “That’s so far. Why would she do that?”

“She’s scared. She doesn’t know where she is. The guy said he’s pretty sure it’s her. And Megan and Nataly are in a neighborhood within the parameters of where Babs told us to send people. It’s her. Poppy’s out there.”

“I’m going to call Babs. And then we’ll go.”

Matt spoke up. “I’m going to take this sign and meet up with Megan and Nataly over there. I think we know where the sign needs to go now.”

Could the plan be working? It could. It was someone else’s plan.