Can you escape Fate? No, but she sure can get away from you, especially if Fate’s an agile, young Labrador retriever.
When sisters Ann and Ellen Flasck agreed to foster the approximately 2-year-old dog this summer, they knew she had never been a pet.
“She cowered when you touched her,” Ann says. “She was on guard all the time. She wanted to take a treat, but she just couldn’t trust.”
The Flascks, who live in Peters, Washington County, are lifelong dog owners who accepted Fate to prepare her for adoption through Ohio-based Lake Erie Labrador Retriever Rescue. My wife, who is the group’s Pennsylvania foster coordinator, was told she was probably abandoned by a puppy mill breeder in Ohio’s Amish Country.
That may explain why the 50-pound dog, whom the Flascks call Pippa, wasn’t used to walks. By the door, she would leap into the air, twisting and jerking whenever someone tried to clip a leash to her collar.
One August evening not long after the sisters took her in, Pippa dodged Ann and shot out the front door. My wife was Ann’s first call, and we were soon wandering her Venetia neighborhood at dusk, calling Fate/Pippa’s name and asking people if they had seen a black Lab.
“I hope you find her,” one woman said to me. “It’s terrible to lose a dog.”
That’s about the time my wife got a call in response to her Pippa Facebook post, and we discovered The Rexcuers. This amazing group of South Hills women named themselves after the lost dog that brought them all together. Their leaders are Laura Hutterer, of Upper St. Clair, and her childhood friend Lisa Hoffman, of Finleyville
“We’re just crazy ladies who like to catch dogs,” Laura says.
Other core members are Heather Folino, of Upper St. Clair, Jessica Wolf, of Bridgeville, Laurie Hayes, of Bethel Park, and Laura’s sister, Robbin Neckerman, of Mt. Lebanon.
Robbin used to make fun of Laura for spending her free time setting up traps, putting up flyers and tracking lost dogs. If she got an alert on her smartphone, her sister would jump out of bed at all hours to check a trap because a sensor said something was in it. If she was lucky, it was the dog they were seeking. More often, it was another dog, a cat or a raccoon attracted by kielbasa, rotisserie chicken, hot dogs or some other smelly bait.
Then a close friend lost her dog, and Robbin understood.
“It breaks my heart to think of a dog out there alone,” she says. “Most people have no idea what to do. Seeing their faces when they get their dog back, there’s nothing like it.”
Count me among those clueless dog owners. When our black Lab ran out the door, I chased her. What I should have done, according to Lisa, is fall down and pretend to be hurt, or jump in the car and say, “Hey Bella, wanna go for a ride? Let’s get ice cream!”
That might have worked on Pippa, if Ann had known. Instead, The Rexcuers blanketed the area with flyers, posted Pippa’s picture on the Facebook page Reuniting Lost and Found Dogs Pittsburgh Area and began setting hot dog-baited traps in places she was seen.
“You’ve got to make them famous,” Lisa says.
They warned helpful callers and Facebookers not to chase Pippa or call her name. Shouting, running strangers terrify a lost dog, Laura says.
“They go into survival mode. They have to get close enough to the owner to smell them.”
The Rexcuers suggest owners put recently worn clothes or a pillow in the dryer in hopes that their scent will lure the dog back.
Hot dogs did the trick for Pippa — the first time. Yes, she escaped again, this time at the end of a walk. She knocked down Ellen and took off dragging two leashes. That made her easier to identify — you’d be surprised how many black dogs are on the lam — but The Rexcuers couldn’t believe one dog was covering so much ground.
“Pippa did 7 miles in one night — six hours!” Laurie marvels.
She was also harder to catch. A camera spotted Pippa sticking her nose into the trap that caught her the first time, and backing out. So they borrowed a much larger trap from a like-minded group of women in the North Hills (there’s also one in the Elizabeth Forward School District).
They baited the trap with grilled kielbasa and hot dogs and set it up in Robbin’s yard, near an area that Pippa frequented. Then they added clothes worn by Robbin’s son, Nick. Why?
“We heard Pippa likes guys, and all dogs love Nick,” she says.
Nick, who has autism, sometimes joins his mother and her friends in their search for lost dogs. He’s part of a sort of men’s auxiliary that also includes his father, John, and Lisa’s husband, Kelse. They fix and move traps and “put up with our craziness,” Laura says.
So how did they catch Pippa the second time? They didn’t.
Amber Kubrick of McCandless was driving home from work in Mt. Lebanon on Oct. 20 when Pippa darted in front of her car on Beverly Road. Seeing the leashes trailing behind her, Amber turned around to look for her. Then she saw the dog, twisting and leaping, one leash snagged on a small piece of metal in the sidewalk. Amber slowly approached a barking, frantic Pippa, trying to read the phone numbers on her tags.
“Suddenly she just stopped, sat down and gave me the saddest puppy eyes. Her tail was so far between her legs. I think she just surrendered.”
That didn’t sound like Pippa to Heather, one of the numbers Amber called.
“When she said she just melted in her arms, I said, ‘You got the wrong dog.’ Pippa was so hard.”
Ann says weeks on the run has changed Pippa. She will sometimes put her head on Ann at home and lounges with her other two dogs, Elli and Beanie, in their bay window.
“I think she’s grateful to be home,” Ann says. “I want to see her with someone who will put in the work. If they can get her past these head issues, I think she’ll be a wonderful pet.”
An Ohio woman who is planning to adopt Pippa says she will do whatever it takes to make her happy. Next week, Pippa heads to her new home — wearing a brand-new GPS tracker.
Kevin Kirkland: kkirkland@post-gazette.com.
First Published: November 2, 2020, 12:00 p.m.
