The first critical sighting--1:30 AM February 18

NOTE: Since this is blog, chapters will appear in reverse order. This is part 2.

At 2:04:39 AM on February 18, we received this email from Kelly Spring. Kelly is a trainer at Your Dog's Best Friends, a daycare, cage-less boarding, grooming and training facility in Alexandria. They specialize in providing guided socialization to anxious and insecure dogs.

Now, I've been working in the local rescue community for three years and have a soft spot for shy dogs who need some extra time and understanding to come out of their shells.

What she thought was the yard of a house on Van Ness, was in fact the very back of the Swedish Ambassadorial Residence, which faces Nebraska Avenue near American University. Please be sure to read the last paragraph of Kelly's email! Kelly never drives down this road. And rarely is she about at such a late (or early) hour. This sighting was critical. Because once a dog is lost, you need sightings to know where to flyer and, in this case, where to begin a scent track.

I saw Gigi at Van Ness St. and 44th tonight (this morning at 1:30)! She was running down Van Ness St toward Mass Ave. I pulled over, but before I was out of the car she slipped under the chain link fence to the yard of 4400 Van Ness. I considered climbing over, but it's a huge back yard and I couldn't see her anywhere and I'm not sure that its fully fenced and she was actually confined.

In the moment that I saw her -- she looked fine.

Nancy, you should see if you can make contact with the people who live at 4400 Van Ness to see if they will cooperate -- let us put out a feeding station, call if they see her, NOT CHASE her, POSSIBLY let us place a trap there if there are additional sightings or Sam from Purer Gold finds evidence that she is hanging out there, etc.

This is a quiet neighborhood -- not a lot of traffic. And it may be an enclosed back yard with limited points where she can enter and exit, so this could be very good news.

On a side note, I have NEVER driven home this way. I was on my way home and testing out an alternative route to work for tomorrow to avoid snow constricted Nebraska Ave. It is also incredibly rare that I'm driving home at this hour. It is nothing short of a miracle that I happened upon her. My fingers are crossed that this is just the first inexplicable miracle in the Gigi search!

Note: We did have a sighting of Gigi the night she escaped our house. It was reported the next day. A DC real estate agent saw Gigi at 10 PM the night she slipped out our front door at 44th and Garrison, near Friendship Heights (behind Lord and Taylor) and several blocks behind Rodman's on Wisconsin Avenue. She knew to call us because we reported Gigi's absence on various neighborhood list serves--which is a critical and relatively easy first step. This turned out to be at the northern edge of the territory Gigi roamed. She was seen again there the next night. That is why additional sightings were needed.