Its been 15 days since Frances went missing in Prospect Park and so much has happened since “Part 2″. But let me pick up where I left off…
Its the Thursday after Frances ran off into Prospect Park. We woke up that morning still thinking that Frances was hiding somewhere within the park. Then my phone started ringing off the hook.
“There has been a possible sighting on Bay 41 and Shore Parkway!” Someone had seen a dog that looked like Frances a couple of minutes ago walking in between the parked cars and the fence of Shore Parkway West.
WHERE was THAT??? I quickly googled it. It was almost 6 miles from Prospect Park.
“Its been five days since she went missing,” Bonnie, who was coordinating our efforts, said. “She could have traveled that far.” Its true. I have heard and been involved with rescues of dogs that have traveled many miles from where they went missing. I still had my doubts though because Frances was so terrified. She would have had to cross many busy streets in bustling neighborhoods. I was sure that Frances would be hiding in a hollowed out tree or under a rock in Prospect Park. Still we have to thoroughly check every reported sighting.
I was on the road in five minutes to the area that I would later find out was called Bath Beach. Christine was stuck at work but called Sean Casey, another rescuer based in Brooklyn, to go over as well to help out. Sean called before I got there and said he drove up and down the street and around the area but did not see the dog. He told me to call if I spotted her and he would come right back to help.
When I got there I parked my car. I wanted to check in every yard, under every bush and car. The dog may be hiding. I still wasn’t convinced this dog was Frances but I wanted to rule it out. I put on gloves, scarf, hood. The wind was bitter but I sucked it up. I walked from Bay 50th all the way down to the end of this stretch of Shore Parkway.
It ended in a dead end street. There was an abandoned building. It was abandoned it mid construction years ago and even in broad daylight it gave me the chills. Weeds took over the fenced in grounds on one side. There was a huge opening to the building but there were no holes in the fence where anyone, including a dog could get through. I walked the whole perimeter twice just to make sure. I did find a cat colony in the back by the dumpsters. I checked under the dumpsters. Frances was originally found hiding under a similar container in Far Rockaway. Then I checked the other side of the building that did not have a fence around it. There was a dark alley way piled high with trash and abandoned construction materials. I had to crawl under boards with my flashlight. There was so many places where a 30 lb dog could hide. When a cat jumped out of a hiding place I nearly had a heart attack. I tried to laugh but I was a little shaken. I hurried through the rest of that side of the building. There was a mattress and blanket like a homeless person was living there. I felt sad and like I was being intrusive. I quickly finished the search there and returned sadly to Shore Parkway.
I walked back to my car and got fliers. I posted them on every pole down that stretch of Shore Parkway. I stopped a couple of people to ask if they saw the dog. One man said he saw a dog this morning around the time of the sighting but he didn’t speak English well. When I showed him the picture and asked if it was the same dog, he didn’t know what I was asking.
After posting on Shore Parkway I drove around the blocks a couple of times. Could this dog really have traveled this far? Or was this a different lost dog that looked similar to Frances?
As I headed home on the Belt Parkway I had a nagging feeling. I got off at the next exit, turned around and headed back to Bath Beach. I drove down Shore Parkway again. I circled around the blocks. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. After an hour with no sightings I headed home.
As I was driving home I got a phone call from a young woman who had seen our flier in Prospect Park.
“I saw your dog on Sunday,” she said. “She was running out of the southwest side of the park near the Parade Grounds. I guess it was Parade Place towards Caton Ave? She was running like something scared her. We tried to get her attention but she wouldn’t even look at us. She was wearing a pink and purple collar with tags… I thought someone would have found her and returned her by now…”
My heart sank. Frances left the park for sure. I thanked the woman and saved her phone number just in case. I drove straight to the area she had said she seen Frances. It was a busy area. Lots of foot traffic and cars. Loud and bustling. Frances seemed like she would want to avoid all of this, but if she was in flight drive and scared she would just be running…
Later that day I was going to meet Christine in Prospect Park. I told her about the phone call and how the woman described Frances. She described the collar she was wearing (which was info that was not on our posters). I was sure this sighting was valid. Furthermore if she ran out of the park on Sunday and kept going in that direction, its not unlikely that she would have ended up in Bath Beach.
We had to check the trap before going out to Bath Beach. We decided to take the trap out of the park first if we didn’t catch a dog and then head towards Bath Beach. Going back up to Quaker Hill in the dark on this freezing cold night with only one other person didn’t really excite me but it made no sense to leave the trap there… all sightings indicate that Frances left the park. So we walked through the darkness of the park, through the woods, past the waterfall and around to the hole in the fence to Quaker Hill.
My heart was pounding. I was expecting the Cane Corso or a rabid raccoon to greet us at any second. The trap seemed further up the hill then I remembered it. About halfway up I shone my flashlight on two gleaming eyes, right by the trap.
“Christine!” I whispered. “Look!”
“Is that in the trap?” She asked.
“No, remember the tree is in front of the trap. We cant see it from here.”
“Its just a raccoon,”She said.
The story about the rabid raccoon attacking the woman in the park was racing through my mind.
“Um, do you think we should wait to get the trap?” I said.
“No, they won’t bother us,” Christine said.
“What is they have rabies?”
She stopped in her tracks. We started at the gleaming eyes.
“I dont’ think their eyes. I think they are lights from the other side of the hill,” Christine said.
“Are you sure?” I was frozen.
“Yes, see? That is the top of the hill and then those lights are from the other side.” She started to walk again.
I breathed a sight of relief. She was right. I started to walk but I kept my flashlight on the lights.
I stopped short. “Umm, Christine, they are moving.” They were definitely eyes. “I’m scared.” My feet were firmly planted on the ground.
“You’re with me,” she said. “Nothing is going to happen. Just follow me. I will go first and just shine your light so I can see.”
Not wanting to feel like a total sissy I sucked it up and followed her. When we got to the trap, the eyes were gone. I was still on edge. Christine was completely relaxed. I hurried and gathered up the tarp trying not to drop my flashlight and the snag pole I was carrying. Christine dragged the trap down the hill. We put it on the hand truck she brought with her and we got out of there, not as fast I would have liked, but as fast as I could move the relaxed Christine along.
We went to the car and loaded the trap in. Christine borrowed her neighbors car to transport the five foot trap. Then a volunteer named April met us. She had made more fliers for us to post. I thanked her and then we were off.
We drove down to Bath Beach from Prospect Park taking local roads that Frances may have taken. It was long. Lots of streets to cross. Lots of crowded areas. It seemed unlikely that she would make it this far… she was once a feral dog but the area she lived in was not populated like this. I had a sinking feeling but refused to give up home. You hear stories about dogs traveling through different states to go home… We thought maybe Frances was trying to get back to Far Rockaway and was following the scent of the beach and ocean.
Once in Bath Beach I showed Christine the area where she was sighted. We got out of the car and walked around. “This is so far…” Christine said sadly looking around.
We posted more fliers anyway. We covered the area the best we could. We did the other side of Shore Parkway, the Eastbound side and then further down Cropsey going South towards Coney Island. She drove and I jumped out of the car. Areas where it wasn’t so busy we both jumped out. We left fliers with Sanitation. We stopped everyone, especially people walking a dog, to see if they had seen Frances. No one had.
It was after midnight when we headed back towards Prospect Park. We posted more there, just in case. We posted heavily in the area where she was seen leaving the park. “She could have ran back in. Maybe someone saw her change direction,” Christine said.
We went into the police station near the park. The officers were extremely nice and helpful. They asked us if we had seen the Cane Corso in Prospect Park that no one has been able to catch. “Yes,” Christine said. “He will be our next project after we find Frances.”
Around two in the morning we called it a night.
The next day, Friday, I went over to Prospect Park early to finish posting on some side streets that Frances could have taken when she ran out of the park. Then I went to Staples and picked up three hundred more fliers and posted some more. Sometimes people don’t stop to look at one flier here and there. But if they see it constantly they pay attention and that is what we needed.
Sometime in the day I got a phone call from a man who said he saw Frances last Sunday, the day after she went missing. She was still in Prospect Park by the lull water just sitting there quietly. He was with his dog who approached her and Frances and the dog sniffed each other. He noted the pink and purple collar. Then suddenly something seemed to spook Frances and she took off like the wind towards the Southwest side of Prospect Park. Another piece to the puzzle…. But we were still trailing Frances. We wanted to get ahead of her.
Then I got a call from a kind lady in Bath Beach who lived right on Shore Parkway. She said she had seen Frances or a dog that looked like Frances out front of her house on Bay 41 and Shore Parkway. The dog was skittish. She was not wearing a collar. She got a pretty good look at her. But she couldn’t tell if the dog was male or female. She said the dog ran away when she approached. She ran inside and got some food. She just set the food down on the street and walked away. The dog came to eat but if the lady took a step towards the dog, the dog would run again so she let her eat.
The not having a collar detail didn’t bother me too much. In six days a dog can lose her collar. Vicki, Frances foster mom, said Frances ate her collar off three times in her house. The dogs behavior sounded just like Frances.
Christine and Sloane picked me up from the southwest side of Prospect Park. I filled them in on the new call.
Sloane, Christine and I drove to Bath Beach. It seemed likely that if she was running, in flight mode and not looking back, perhaps she did run straight down to Bath Beach. Its been six days since she has been missing. Its not far to travel six miles in six days. we took a slightly different local route there, posting big, colorful 11×14 posters that Sloane had made for us all along the way.
We passed an enormous cemetery on the way. Sometimes lost dogs hide out in cemeteries. We posted heavily around there. The gates were locked and it was pitch black inside. I was starting to get an unsettling feeling. Frances could be anywhere in that cemetery. So many places to hide. It would be hard to search every place in the daylight… not only could she be anywhere in the cemetery, she could be anywhere in Brooklyn… or even Queens by now. She may not even be alive. If she ran out in the street, maybe she got hit by a car. It was something I pushed out of my mind. I didn’t have the strength consider it seriously. I decided reasons to lose hope would not be acknowledged from here on in.
And we went on all the way to Bath Beach, jumping out of the car and posting all the way. We looked around the Shore Parkway area. We found a park on the other side of the Belt Parkway behind the Home Depot. Half it was closed off for renovations. We found a path we could drive in. The park was bordered by the water on the south. We shined the flood lights into the woods. We drove as far as we could, branches brushing against the windows, then we turned around. We posted fliers on the posts around the playing fields. In the light tomorrow we would come back and check again. Then we drove down the Belt Parkway… then we came back around and went down to Coney Island. It makes sense that if this dog was Frances and she kept on her route and was trying to get to the beach, then Coney Island is where she would end up.
We drove down along side the boardwalk. There were many abandoned lots and closed up amusement park lots. There was an overwhelming amount of places for her to hide. The wind was whipping around the buildings, coming in from the beach. We parked the car by the boardwalk ramp and got out to look under the boardwalk… but it went on forever and ever and ever. We went on the boardwalk. It was vacant. Sad. Abandoned. I felt a wave of sadness… of helplessness wash over me. I stared out at the ocean. The beach stretched before it. It was lonely. It was freezing. I had such an empty feeling.
“We’ll never find her,” Christine said. I was feeling the same thing but I was trying to push it away. There was just too many places for her to hide if she was here. But what if she wasn’t here? She could be anywhere…
“We will find her,” I said. When one of us is feeling down, the others have to be strong even if we aren’t sure, we act like we are. Sometimes you have to take turns being the strong one. “She is around here. In the light we will be able to see better. We are posting fliers everywhere. We will get more sightings tomorrow.”
We had also organized a search party tomorrow morning. Since it as Saturday many people were off from work and wanted to come help. Bonnie had organized the streets and areas into sections where teams of people would go to search and post fliers. We would be able to cover a lot of ground. I reminded Christine about the search party. She nodded with tears coming down her cheeks.
We turned to leave the boardwalk. The wind was whistling through the boards. My hands were numb from the cold. My heart was broken. I turned to look back at the beach one more time… it was just vast emptiness. When I got home, for the first time since Frances went missing, I cried.
