Great news! After 10 days on the run we were able to recapture our sweet little girl Darcy on Saturday, November 3. Our dedicated volunteers, well wishers and local residents never gave up on Darcy and we are eternally grateful for their dedication, perseverence and general stick-to-it-iveness!

The Capture: Just as we'd been doing since Darcy bolted on October 24 we'd organized yet another a search team to meet up at 9:00 a.m. Saturday in the Toronto ravine in which she'd last been spotted. Our initial walk through the park yielded no sightings at all but lots of people who had seen Darcy over the past few days. As we were walking around the streets a woman pulled over in her car to say she'd just seen Darcy and was trying to find her. Then we had someone else tell us they'd seen Darcy sitting on someone's lawn up in the subdivision. So off we went and just when our group split into two to fan out into the streets one of our volunteers spotted her and the chase was on. It seemed like we were always several steps behind her. She was like Houdini. She'd go into the bush in one spot and pop up in completely the other direction minutes later. We had lots of sightings over the course of the morning, but we could never get close enough to grab her. The entire neighbourhood at this point had joined us and were out looking with their dogs. Like most Boxers Darcy can run like the wind and she kept running right by one of our members but never close enough so we could tag her.

After about three 3 hours, we had decided to call it a day and instead put our time into posting more flyers and doing more door knocking. We felt at that point we might have been doing more harm than good in continuing to pursue her. We were afraid we might make her even more people shy. Half of us walked through the park and the other half headed back up to the road via the north end of the park so that we could maximize our flyer distribution. At the top of the park, Darcy ran by our group. She ran towards one of the girls then turned and headed for the pathway leading back down to the park, but fortunately was met by some more of our volunteers along with some local residents and their dogs. One bad decision by Darcy - she veered to the inside between one of our volunteers Ken and a fence - and Ken just tackled her. She struggled pretty hard, and by then another volunteer, Larry, was there and got a lunge line around her neck to try to secure her. They took one of the dogs collars off and they were able to get it on her along with a leash. As soon as she had the collar on, she calmed right down.

She almost looked relieved and was obviously exhausted. Ken carried her up to the parking lot to wait for the rest of us and of course they called the rest of the group screaming into the cell phone "WE'VE GOT HER! WE'VE GOT HER!" She made no attempts to run away once she was secured and cuddled into Ken's lap although she wouldn't take any food or water. Much to our amazement she looks pretty good! Some abrasions and weight loss but surprisingly little considering she's been on the run for 10 days. Linda popped Darcy in her car and she promptly fell asleep rousing herself briefly only when they got to her foster home where, once safely crated, she promptly fell asleep again.

All in all it was a wonderful way to end the day! We all slept well that night, Darcy especially!

Many thanks for all the emails, suggestions, offers of help, searchers. We couldn't have done it without you!

The rescue group that captured Darcy, left to right Laura, Linda, Larry, Mary, Ken, Christine. Layla on the ground and lucky Darcy in Ken's lap