"You're a closer!" exclaimed Piedmont Huntsman Spencer Allen, referring to the closing pitcher in a ball game. After three and a half agonizing months, he was finally holding Live Oak Charter, the handsome hound we'd been chasing, in the back seat of my Honda. Trying to keep back tears while driving to the veterinary clinic, "Yes Spencer, we won the world series, didn't we!"

The misadventure begins

The Live Oak Hunt staff had arrived a day early to get settled into the kennels at the Virginia Foxhound Show held at Morven Park. It was a beautiful spring day in late May. After stretching for a bit upon arrival, Huntsman Dale Barnett led the pack of 38 veteran and young hounds to their kennels. While sorting out the accommodations, the cacophony of several hundred barking hounds spooked this handsome black and white Crossbred Foxhound puppy and another puppy named Live Oak Perfect, causing them to bolt into the woods.

Every morning before dawn, Dale blew his horn to call them back, to no avail.

With heavy hearts the staff went on with the show, but with the two hounds missing, each winning ribbon was a bittersweet achievement.

Returning home without Charter and Perfect to their Florida-based kennels had to be the longest trip ever made by their owners, Daphne and Marty Wood, and the Live Oak staff.

It was the third year I attended the hound show with the Blue Ridge Hunt. As an equine and sporting artist, I had fallen in love with the foxhound breed. I heard the news of their escape shortly afterwards and called Live Oak's office to see if they could use fliers or banners to get the word out locally.

Within an hour photos and details were emailed and that night fliers were posted on Middleburg's two group Facebook pages and the Middleburg Humane Foundation's page. Banners were placed at Morven Park's main entrance and the Atoka Store, as suggested by Spencer. Within days, hundreds, if not thousands, knew of the missing hounds. Calls started to pour in.

Perfect Returns

During our happy drive to the clinic, Spencer described how he believes the pair made their way to Purcellville, but then split up. Perfect, a smaller bitch, made her way back to Morven Park and was caught successfully two to three weeks later thanks to the help of retired Fairfax huntsman Kevin Palmer who left food out and kept an eye on it.

Charter continued his journey south to eventually settle around Zulla Road and Hwy 50 for what would be the entire summer.

What I consider the ember that started the wildfire of my search, was when Joanne Swift called to tell me "Charter's living on Skyland Farm." "Living? What do you mean?" I asked.

As I listened, I thought, "This hound has set up shop there!"

Immediately I called Daphne Wood. Not wanting to interfere with Spencer's efforts, but knowing so much time had passed and cubbing was around the corner, I asked, "Could I help by feeding him? I think I have a plan."

In a soft voice, Daphne replied, "Anything you can do would be a great help. These hounds are our children."

Thus began the first day of Hound Catching 101. Daphne and I discussed options: the first everyone thinks of is tranquilizing. A dog hit with a projectile syringe and needle will outrun a Maserati if he doesn't get hit by a car and killed in the process. Forget about the fact it's a firearm and the related qualifications of use.

Sedation? Who could follow him in the woods? All good reasons for him to move on and never return.

We decided passive capture without trauma or injury was best – by using the hound's assets: his nose and his stomach.

I Googled "How to find a lost dog." The very first listing was www.lostdogsinamerica.org and found well organized, well written pages describing all facets of the challenge of finding and trapping feral or semi-feral cats and dogs, or lost companion pets.

There were options. Very sensible advice about what to do, what foods to leave, what kind of trap, where to leave it, when to visit, adding an owner's clothing, or removing scent (did you know Pam cooking spray neutralizes scent?), using a trail camera, getting permission from property owners, gloves, insurance, anticipating the best and worst scenarios. It covered every literal hair on the animal.

Within the day, we had a plan. And renewed hope.

Stranger in A Strange Land

Charter was neither a feral animal nor a companion pet, but a young hound born in a kennel, socialized by a few people, then returned to kennel life. As a young unneutered hound, huntsman Dale Barnett was his main guy. But Charter was now living among strangers in a strange land. Although he'd been exercising with the pack all winter, calling by horn was futile. As Spencer explained, the hounds know their huntsman's horn. Like a mother's voice, they know, and his horn was not the horn Charter knew.

After the first sightings around the Tennis Club, Spencer set the trap, but unfortunately in Charter's first attempt, he was too big and too fast for the spring door to work properly, getting his front legs caught as he retreated.

We had a trap phobic hound on the loose. I looked at coyote traps at Southern States and thought, he couldn't get his front paws in that thing either, and coyotes walk into that? Probably at least 30 inches at his beautiful noggin, this hound needed some "out of the box" strategy. He needed a hound cave.

Daphne told me she'd looked at bear traps, too big and cumbersome.

"What about a hog trap?" I asked.

Bingo. At least a dozen different traps were analyzed for portability, effectiveness, and cost, and we decided a Voorhies "root type door" boar trap was the way to go. It's an 8-feet long, 3-feet high, 4-feet wide steel framed cage with 4-inch wire fencing, and a 3-paneled door hinged from the top and angled inward that swings independently to allow a 400-pound momma sow to enter while her piglets go through a single door.

Once in, there's no escape. For Charter, the doors would work as one, or two, depending upon the mechanics to make it drop. Traps with trip mechanisms ran over $1,000. Too fancy. Surely we could retrofit some sort of mechanism, but who could we find to do this?

The trap was ordered to arrive a week later.

Hound Catching 101

Feeding Charter in one place at the same time every day was another rule of Hound Catching 101, and Roy and Denise Perry of Skyland Farm were all too happy to let me establish a "feeding station" in the field where he was known to be living. Roy drove me around the property and we came upon him napping in a stand of trees. In the shade, it was quiet, he obviously felt safe. I got out and sat on the ground, slowly calling his name. He woke up, looked at me, and then calmly sauntered off.

Because this site was used by riders in the day and horses were left out at night, we moved the feeding location into an open field nearby to prevent our presence, hound and human, from interfering with the farm's activities or welfare of riders or horses.

A trail camera was an essential tool. It was positioned nearby to take day and night photos. Knowing what was eating the food, and when, was key to the next day's strategy. I bought two cards so there would always be one in the camera while I looked at the images in the other at home on my computer. Seeing identifiable strange dogs eat Charter's meal one night made me livid, and I had the unhappy task of calling their owner to keep them safe at home. Otherwise, the only other raiders were the foxes nearby and the occasional skunk.

It was suggested that only one person leave the food, and handle the cage, buckets and everything the escapee will encounter. Many people suggested bringing a hot bitch to attract him to the location, but that's easier said than done, and dangerous to the bitch. The scent left by the bitches on the blankets were the next best thing. As Charter was an intact dog hound, we made plans to have a horse blanket slept on by a bitch in season, and Guy Allman of the Blue Ridge Hunt was happy to oblige.

Lastly, no outsiders or visitors to the site. Get the hound use to seeing the "food lady."

Food, the pièce de résistance! Being the scent hound he was, Charter had no trouble finding the food I left from day one. Anything smelly and cooked was suggested: cat food, tripe, BBQ, fried bacon, hot dogs, organ meats, chicken gizzards and hearts, all these foods exude aroma far longer than dry or raw food that have no lingering scent.

Debone the fried chicken from KFC. Start small if he's been on the lam for a while. Since Charter was very thin, I began to slowly increase the volume each day to allow his system to adapt. My friend Cynthia Daily gave me lamb organ meats and ribs, the meats went to Charter and the ribs to the foxes. My car began to take on the aroma of Eau d'Alpo.

He's Been Injured

On the eleventh day, to my horror not a bit of dinner had been touched. I was crestfallen. Where had he gone to miss dinner? That night, the photos showed him with a 6" stick in his mouth, and his jaw was hanging oddly. I was sick. It was August, was he just panting? Soon afterwards, other reports confirmed his jaw was broken.

Time was running out.

I took the day's old food, now soft and mushy, and laid it out on the ground, adding the new stuff on top. To my utter joy, it was all gone the next day! The photos showed he was crouching down and licking the food into the side of his mouth. This hound was a survivor. He'd found a way to eat it. He was drinking water from the bucket, leaving bits of evidence. Early on upon arriving to the area, Charter found the automatic waterers at Skyland and Hickory Hill behind it. Access to daily water helped him survive.

Tractor Supply in Marshall called to say the trap had arrived, all 165 pounds of it. Wayne Van Sant, a friend of Spencer's, volunteered to pick it up and bring it to his Atoka Forge to figure out how to set the door. I had a simple plan but his was simpler: his gate latch.

In his barn, we tweaked the size of the floor, how it would be attached, trying to think of anything that could go wrong. Wayne was the veritable linchpin to making this scheme work. The scene reminded me of an old MacGyver episode where he escapes his life threatening predicament with the use of granny's hairpins.

The next challenge was to establish comfort and trust of the cage. The trap was pushed back into the stand of trees where Charter had been feeding, secluded and in the shade. The door was completely tied up, making it a "hound cave" into which he could easily walk, turn around and stand to gaze the horizon.

The pot of food was dumped on the ground about six feet away from the entrance that day. The next day, the food was placed three feet closer... The next day at the front of the cage, and finally, in the middle of the cage on a plywood floor and finally, on the last day, way in the back.

The cameras showed he had no fear of the contraption, grazing for hours to eat throughout the night due to his injuries. The momma fox and her kits came by often around midnight, but I left plenty of dry kibble around their foxhole to keep them happy at home.

Every day I emailed images and a report to Daphne of what I ascertained from the photos. They helped her stay realistic yet hopeful. I posted on Facebook that we were days away from setting the trap. Emphatically, in screaming CAPS, I asked everyone to let Charter come and go as usual, to leave him alone.

Charter or bust

The day to set the trap arrived. Leary of doing anything to spook Charter, Wayne hopped into my Honda and we drove to the trap around 3 p.m., two hours before his usual dinner-time at 5. There he was, lying in the grass, waiting for me! He casually sauntered off around the corner and as the photographs were to show that night, watched me crawl into the trap to empty the kettle of still steaming hot chopped up livers and kidneys onto the trap floor as Wayne set the latch.

"What about the blankets?" I asked Wayne. The girls will have to wait another day we agreed. Like two secret agents we were gone.

"What's he doing?" I whispered. Wayne offered me the binoculars but I was too nervous to look.

Pam Dickson of Fursman Kennels, adjacent to Skyland Farm, would see Charter quite often, and happily let us watch Charter from her driveway. Within minutes, Charter walked nonchalantly into the cage, ate a little, walked out to gaze upon the horizon, then back in to eat.

Even from the distance I could see his black and white markings move. Then I couldn't. He had disappeared. Seconds went by, then ka-plunk! Wayne exclaimed, "He's in!"

Happy Hound is Found

After 30 days, I was finally able to look into the soulful eyes of this ghost hound. Standing so quietly, watching me watch him, he looked up at me when I spoke his name. Spencer came minutes later and walked right up to scratch Charter on the noggin. Lifting a single panel, Charter quietly walked out and Spencer carried him into the backseat of the car, resting comfortably on his lap, and off we went.

You could tell this hound was happy to be found.

As of this writing, it is believed Charter was accidentally kicked by a horse since he was living among them and considered them friendly territory. The veterinary staff says he's a very good patient, and very clever. He quickly figured out how to push up the gate latch of his cage, so now, he is now under lock and key.

We are hopeful for a full recovery and that he will be returned to the pack, or if not, life as a couch potato.

On behalf of Daphne and Marty Wood, Huntsman Dale Barnett, and Live Oak Hounds, Perfect and most of all, Charter, thank you all!