. . . and again on Wednesday later:

Jeanne & I set up the coyote trap this afternoon next to the house where she was last seen. Even though I knew it would be futile to expect to see her in the middle of the day, I took Jack with me (couldn't fit more than one dog in the van with the coyote trap), and we walked around for a while and I whistled and called, pretending I was calling Rose, Riley, Jack AND LILLY to come in for cookies. Jack did his part by leaving his scent on all the bushes in the area.

Jeanne just sent me this message:

We just got a call from someone who lives a house away from where we placed the trap and they've seen LILLY. The woman is out walking her dogs and is going to take her dogs into her own yard and leave the gate open and see if LILLY will come in. I told them not to approach her or try to corner her, just let her be; that we'd set the trap. They'll call us back if they can tell us anything else.

John & I walked Mookie & Fronzi up there tonight and didn't see a thing and when we got home another neighbor had called, leaving a message that said they'd heard the coyotes tangle with something (a dog??) last night down by our construction site where I'd originally had her crate. But Jack had called me that same night and said the coyotes were raising Cain down there and I think he'd have known if a dog had been involved in the frey. From the way LILLY was running this morning, she didn't appear hurt or lame so I'm guessing the neighbor didn't know it was just coyotes.

I'll be up there first thing in the morning to check the trap and put more sardines out.

. . . and again on Wednesday even later:

Another neighbor just called Jeanne and said LILLY came right up to their glass doors. They tried to lure her in, but she ran away when she saw them.

More news on Thursday from Sidney:

Jeanne talked to the people whose door LILLY looked in last night and they said that she hung around there all night. They have a little patch of grass in front of the house and she was lying out there.

Jeanne & John are going to move the trap up to that house and the owners are going to try leaving the door to their house open with some food inside to see if she will come inside. I am hoping that as it heats up she might come in for the air conditioning.

On Thursday afternoon comes the good news from Sidney:

I won't leave you in suspense this time . . . she is HOME, she is fine, she is safe!

Jeanne had made a treat bag to give to the owner of the house where LILLY spent the most time last night. The plan was that they would watch for her during the day and if they saw her, they would make a trail of treats for her to follow and open the door to try to lure her in.

Jeanne parked at the street and tip-toed down the drive, hoping she might see LILLY on the lawn, but she wasn't there. She went in and spent about an hour talking to the owner and then, as she was walking back to her car, LILLY bolted down the drive in front of her and headed down the street back toward the house where the trap was set. Jeanne got in her car and crept down the road after her. Some construction guys came roaring up behind her and she made them stop. She told them she had been trying to catch this dog for three days and would they please slow down so they didn't scare her. They told her they had 20 minutes for a break and to get out of the way. They went roaring down the road, honking at LILLY.

Well, as it happened, this turned out to be a good thing because LILLY ran back to where the trap was and into the back yard of the house. The owner had been leaving the back gate open, hoping that LILLY would come in. Jeanne couldn't see from the street where LILLY was and didn't want to scare her away, so she called the owner on her cell phone, but got a busy signal. The owner had been trying to call her to tell her that LILLY was in the yard and to close the gate. When they finally connected, Jeanne ran to the gate and closed it.

Then LILLY was trying to figure out how to get out of the yard and was headed toward a rock pile in the corner. If she had clambered up that, she would have been over the wall and out of there, but Jeanne was able to corner her. She says she looked at her and said, "no more, young lady!!" She and the owner then sat with LILLY on the grass in the shade until LILLY finally calmed down and relaxed.

John came and got the crate and LILLY is now HOME, resting comfortably. She has a cut on one paw, but otherwise looks okay. Jeanne says she is letting her pet her all over and check out the cut and treat it without any objections at all, so maybe this experience has made HOME look a lot better to her! Jeanne tells me she thought she was over all this worry once her children got beyond the teens. She is thinking of enrolling LILLY in military school (just kidding).

Thank you so much for all of your positive thoughts and prayers. I know that those thoughts, along with the fast and determined action taken by Jeanne & John, and the wonderful cooperation of their neighbors, are what brought LILLY HOME. She is now double-leashed, if not hog-tied.

Whew!!!

Jeanne writes:

We both took a nap and LILLY is now lying on the oh so cool tile (even if it's as far away from me as she can get). After we got her into the house, I quickly cleaned her paw with some peroxide and looked at it as best I could since she was not too happy to have me handling it. I figured we'd both nap and I'd let her settle down some more before I made a second attempt to check the wound. I was just able to pull a cactus spine out of it and bless her little heart, she just endured it, no growls or nips. I suspect it's been in there a couple of days as the area is a bit swollen and when I can, I'll check to see if there are more that I can't see without pushing around on it.

I did get her to eat (which she would have absolutely no part of when she first got into the house) some sardines out of my hand and then a couple of small dog biscuits. I suspect she'd eat more, but I think (and tell me if I'm wrong) that we need to feed her in little meals since it's been four days since she's eaten anything. I will give her more sardines later this afternoon as I suspect the oil will be good for her coat and the fish high protein and easy to digest. I don't want to induce diarrhea tho so will go easy with it . . . actually, maybe putting the fish oil/juice from the can over some of her dry food would be better.

I feel another nap coming on.

Sidney writes on Friday:

I couldn't sleep last night. I kept waiting for the phone to ring to tell me she was gone again. I had this unfocused anxiety this morning, which didn't leave until Jeanne sent me a note and I realized it was because I was worried that LILLY had escaped again. I told Jeanne that she is going to have to drop me a line every morning and night for a while, just saying "LILLY is here."

Jack & I are going up to spend the night with them tonight and then will pick up the coyote trap tomorrow and probably another foster child from Melissa in Phoenix. While we are there, we are going to practice getting in and out of the cars with Jack as leader and are going to take a walk up near their lot. Jeanne & John are petrified to walk her now and I figure it will be easier for them to "get back on the horse" if I am there. They will have double collars and leashes on her.