On December 5th, 2023 Ice was adopted to his new family. They were traveling back to Casper, WY and made a gas station stop here in Cheyenne, WY a little ways off I-25. Unfortunately Ice was able to escape their vehicle & he bolted off immediately. This would begin his 7 day adventure around the Western Hills area and across the interstate. We quickly started chatting with the new owner on what to do/not do. She had obligations that she needed to get back to in Casper on night one, so we asked if she’d like our help to get him safely. We began gathering information about his history with the help of the previous owners & new owner, creating the flyers, getting them hung, and speaking with the community on social media. This little guy would see a person and bolt, if he thought he was being followed – off he went. He is a fast little guy too! The previous owners came down as they thought he would come to the sound of their truck as he did daily on their ranch. Unfortunately they weren’t able to locate him. I had warned them that since he was in survival mode in an unfamiliar place it probably would not work, but didn’t hurt for them to try as they wanted a way to help.
On December 7th a community member started asking folks to whistle at him and run the opposite direction. We advised that this should not be done as he was in fight/flight & strangers whistling would just cause him to flee more and how dangerous it was with him next to the interstate. The information was removed from public platforms to hopefully avoid the chaos that would ensue if the community did take that advice. Unfortunately this person took it upon herself to try to gather folks on social media to do “whatever it takes” to get him, without even consulting the owners. We all know how detrimental this is to a case. I won’t even begin to lie – I almost backed out of this case for the sole fact of safety concerns for Ice with people following him & pursuing. It was a very dangerous position for him. We saw camera footage of him heading to cross the interstate & a semi blew their horn so he bolted back. I am all for teamwork & teaching the community – but not when egos are involved & it puts the dog we are working on in danger. I chose to block this person & just continue what we do. We would continue to get sightings and we were alerted when folks were following him, we kindly asked them not to follow as we were working to trap him safely.
On December 11th we got the lead that would have Ice captured the next day. Brittany Boyd had seen him in her yard and offered to let us place a trap there. He had previously looped around her area so we came up with a plan to do just that. We have a funny story for this part! On the night of the 11th, we had a dog appear in our trap that was not Ice. We went over and discovered that it was actually their dog. It had dug under the fence because of the yummy bait, so we knocked on the door & we all got a good laugh from that one. I appreciate them not being upset for us ringing their doorbell at 11pm.
On December 12th at 9am her husband reset the trap door for us after a cat had tripped it. At 937am we got word that Ice was on the same street as the trap. He had not gone over near the trap though as we watched our cameras patiently. We then got a sighting at the other end of the neighborhood so I sprinted over to the trap at 1025am with some fresh smelly food and got out of there quickly. At 1055am our camera notified us that he was in the trap. He was safe at last!
We cannot thank the community members enough who followed our advice & trusted us to help this little guy to safety. We want to shout out Ice’s adopter, Kylie, as well because she was a rockstar through all of the chaos. She promptly reported every sighting call/text to us. Thank you all for trusting us and your continued support!
©Diamond In The Rough Pet Recovery 