Going To Try A Humane Dog Trap~Any Advice??? (vet, cost, kids)

[Amazonchix]

We have had two stray dogs roaming our neighborhood for weeks...and part of me wonders if I may have even seen them around the spring time. The male is a lab/golden mix and the female is a shep/cattle dog mix. We have been feeding them and trying to earn their trust. We eventually lured them back to our home to show them where food would be if they would just show up. Both of these dogs look physically pitifull, they are both under weight and the male has severe mange. The female would approached us within a foot when food was present. Again, we didn't try to touch her as she was cautiously watching our every move. The male dog keeps his distance from us and will only eat when we retreated away from the food bowl. We thought we would eventually earn their trust and get them to our backyard, but after the event two days ago...we decided to take a more proactive stance.

Two days ago we had an emotional roller coaster day with the male stray mid morning. Our neighbor called frantic b/c the male was in the middle of a busy intersection (about 2 miles from our house) running in and out of traffic. She finally got him turned around to head back East towards our neighborhood addition. My partner and I jumped in the car and tried getting him but he wouldn't come to us and kept running off. We were worried he was sick and disoriented. But then again we weren't sure he was sick b/c sadly he has never been scared by cars. We called Animal Control twice b/c he eventually laid down and fell asleep exhausted under the huge tracker parked on the side the road (the construction area). We assumed the worse and left b/c we didn't want to cause him to panic and run back into the street. An hour later he came to our house to eat! We saw him while doing lawn work. We tried to approach him as he was eating and he ran off. We haven't seen him since but today all the food was eaten out of the bowl. We haven't seen the female since before we tried getting the male out of traffic. Prior to our scary adventure with the male, the two dogs were always together. That day marked the first time we've not seen both dogs together or even the female. We are beginning to wonder if someone caught her...or even the worse. We went driving to look along the roads to see if she had been hit but didn't see her. We even logged onto Petharbor.com (a website that posts all animals to come into area shelters) to see if someone turned her into the shelter...but no luck.

We have an acquaintance we met through our animal welfare volunteering. She is a previous animal control officer who has a huge heart. She now works for the city in another department but still moonlights as a vet tech on some evenings and weekends. I've seen her handle dogs like no one else! She has offered to come over as soon as we trap the dog(s) and handle them to see if they can be managed and rehabilitated by us.

We didn't have any dog eat yesterday, but someone ate all the food today between 7:30-9am. So I pulled myself together and made the decision it's now or never. I told myself last night that if we saw the dogs again it would be the sign to get a trap...we didn't see them but the food was gone and I figured that was a good enough sign. Well I did it today...I broke down and went to the local shelter to borrow a dog trap. I have been avoiding that place b/c I feared what I would see, hear, smell would send me into another sad crying spell. I just made up my mind today I had to do it. I did not cry. We have a trap on loan for a week at no cost to us.

Since we see them in the morning times, we'll set up the trap tomorrow morning. We will put the trap up before noon and we will be checking it often. We are trapping on the side of our house. Keep your fingers crossed for us! We'll know more about the disposition of the dog as soon as our acquaintence comes over to look at him. I assume the male since we have not seen the female. If he has a chance, we'll give it to him. At least, this is the plan for now.


ANY last minute suggestions for trapping a dog? Has anyone done this before? We do have some TNR experince with cats.

[zugor]

I wrote about trapping 2 small feral dogs here:

Stray Dog Dilemma

Maybe this will help a little

[Blondie621]

OMG! This is a horrible situation. Thank God you care!
I can tell you from being an experienced rescuer for many years that a trap will probably not work and rarely does. Stray dogs are very smart and very cautious. My sense is that he/she will steer clear of it even with a steak inside. My partner years ago suggested we try a trap for a dog we knew ran off 6 months prior from a vet tech while being spayed. I spotted her one day when I changed my directions home and went a different way! Wierd! She ended up across a major highway hanging out in a neighborhood. We found out thru talking there was a woman who somewhat befriended the dog in the area she was hanging around in. She would feed the dog and leave a blanket in the garage where the dog would sleep at night. She could never get close to the dog. Long story short, she closed the door on the dog one morning and we contacted the owner and she got her dog back.
Now this was a dog who had an owner for a few weeks before the spay and she did not trust anyone nor would she let anyone get within any short close distance of her.
You will have to befriend this dog with constant food and treats and maybe leave the food in a garage, a big space where he/she can eventually be closed off in after he/she has been in and out quite a few times and feels safe in the area. It also has to be a very quiet area. No kids screaming or loud noises and voices. It takes alot of patience but the dog can and will be caught!
Hope this helped and sorry for going on and on! Good luck!

If you do want to try a trap make sure it is in a really quiet area where there are no people around, like in the bushes somewhere. It is worth a shot! He may be the one to go in! Good luck!