Last Sunday two of our volunteers contacted me to tell me some horrible news. Frances, a once feral dog that was rescued from Far Rockaway, a dog that we had put our heart and souls into training and socializing, a dog that we had just adopted out to a seemingly perfect home had gone missing in Prospect Park. I try not to get emotional and focus on the task at hand. I told them I would go to Prospect Park first thing in the morning and help search for her. Even though she would be in flight drive and wouldn’t respond to people she even knew, I had helped find and rescued dogs like this before (see the posts on Sonny the beagle and Baisley the shepherd mix) . I knew that with the help of some very talented and amazing rescuers, we could find and rescue Frances.
However its almost seven days later and still Frances has not been found. The past week has been a roller coaster ride of dramatic ups and downs. We started the search in the park Monday morning. I met Vicki and Juliette at the park. Frances had entered the park on 7th Street and Prospect Park West. She had jumped out of the owners car after they parked and bolted into the park. We searched the whole area. Vicki, the volunteer who fostered Frances, brought her dog that Frances had bonded to. I stayed in the park till ten pm that night. Bonnie, Paulina, Eddie, Christine and Frankie came at around 7pm. We posted flyers, I searched the woods on the west side of the park. The night was freezing cold. The wind chilling. Every sound of leaves rustling in the wind made me jump. I thought that Frances would be hiding somewhere like she was when Christine had found her in Far Rockaway. I looked in every hollow tree, under the trailers and trucks in the maintenance yard, under every tree and bush. There was no sign of her.I was not yet worried though. I thought that she would stay in the park because she is a scaredy cat. She would find a place to hide and only venture out to look for food. She would stay in the park where its safe….
Tuesday morning I went back to the park with my dog, a pit bull named Rockaway. We walked all over the south side of the park. We walked to the nethermead, the boat house, the long meadow, around the cemetery and Quaker Hill, all over Lookout Hill (which is creepy in the day time. I had no idea what was coming later that night…), around the Boathouse, along both sides of the lull water. Around the northside of the lake to the park of the park near the rink where they fenced off because of renovations. We ran into a beautiful giant Cane Corso on Quaker Hill who apparently has been living there for years. (More on that later) and finally at five when it was dark, we went home. I dropped Rockaway off, went to Home Depot to get a powerful flashlight and then headed back to the park to meet Christine and her friends Anthony, Josephine and Sloane. I had my new flashlight, flyers, tape, treats and layers of clothing. It was in the 20′s. Freezing.
We agreed to stay together on the search because the park was pitch black in some places and not safe to be alone. I was also the only one with some knowledge of the park. I had lived in Park Slope years ago. We headed across the field towards Quaker Hill where I saw the cane corso. We thought that Frances may have hooked up with him and they may be together. Being in the middle of the park at night was a different kind of darkness than being on the woods on the west side near the street. This darkness was thick, heavy, and deep. We walked around the perimeter of Quaker Hill, down a path, past a waterfall and to the other side. I showed them where I saw the Cane Corso. The area was fenced off to the public but Christine and Anthony found an opening near the cemetery and went in to see if Frances was there. Josephine, Sloane and I were at the bottom of the hill waiting and keeping watch. That is when we heard the screaming.
Loud shrill panicked screams coming from Lookout Hill. We heard growling. It sounded like a monster was eating the girl alive. We called to Anthony and Christine who stumbled down the hill and we ran over to Lookout and called out to the wall of darkness. We heard voices. One? Two? We couldn’t tell. Disoriented screams and pleas for help. “Where are you? Are you hurt?” we called back. We shined our flashlights all over the hill. Beams of light illuminate small circles of bare branches, dead leaves on a canvass of empty blackness. We started to make our way through the brush up the hill sticking close together.
“Is that your dog?!” a girl cried out hysterically.
“What dog? Frances!? Frances!!” Christine ran up the hill calling out and didn’t hear the girl say that it was a big black dog. Frances is a medium sized brown collie mix with tannish fur.
We found the girl under a lamp. She had a pit bull with her. She was shooken up. So was the dog. She explained a large black dog ran out and her dog chased it into the dark and there was a confrontation. She couldn’t find her dog. She was screaming and then we came over.
“It was probably the Cane Corso,” Someone said.
“Is that the ghost dog of Prospect Park?” the girl asked.
We explained the Cane Corso was very much alive. I saw him in broad daylight. That was a real, living, breathing dog. But it was kind of eerie that he was already becoming legend. We explained we were looking for Frances. She hadn’t seen her. We gave her a flyer and told her to be careful. Lookout Hill was an extremely dark place at night. Didn’t feel quite right that she was walking alone, even with a pit bull.
So what did we do after she left? Search the dark and foreboding Lookout Hill. We stayed close together. My heart was pounding. I thought the Cane Corso may jump out at us at anytime. The path winds up the hill. Tall weeds, bare branches, dead leaves rustling in the wind, the chill in the air. Clouds covered the moon and stars. It was beyond dark. It was unsettling to think Frances could be hiding in such a place. We searched the best we could. I was relieved when we came back down.
We left food by Quaker Hill where I saw the Cane Corso earlier in the day. There was a hollowed out tree there, a perfect place for a dog to hide and sleep away from the elements as she could be in the park. We put food around there. Then we started back towards the west side of the park, posting flyers alone the way.
When I got home at 11pm that night, I was still shaking. I went to bed and dreamt about ghosts at Prospect Park. None of them were Frances though. I knew she was very much alive and tomorrow, Wednesday, we would find her.
