Lost Dog Finds a Home — and a Community

On Jan. 7, two separate threads appeared on MaplewoodOnline about a lost male German Shepherd in the neighborhood around Boyden and Parker avenues. What followed illustrates what living in a community is all about.

It started out simply enough — a post on the local message board about a wandering and seemingly lost dog. People started to comment, saying that they'd seen the dog on this street or that, that the dog had just passed their home, or that they were very worried about the animal being outside in the bitter cold.

And then something happened. People stopped posting and started doing.

A coordinated effort was made to catch the dog, including alerting Maplewood and South Orange's animal control officers. But, as one poster pointed out, German shepherds can be very difficult to catch. And this one proved to be above average in that department.

Over the course of the next few days a pattern emerged. The dog preferred certain porches to sleep on – stone ones with a clear view of the street. He tended to stay in one area. This raised concerns that he may have been dumped in the area as an unwanted pet. People volunteered to check with the local authorities, shelters and Petfinder.com to see if anyone reported a missing dog fitting his description. Nothing was found.

People bandied potential names about for the dog. Highlander was one because of the movie and the nearby street. Einstein was another because the dog seemed to be a genius at outwitting everyone trying to catch him. And finally Frankie, for the character in the movie “Catch Me If You Can” — for obvious reasons.

But on Jan. 10, a poster by the name of sneeka said that the dog had slept on her porch. At 10:32 p.m. on Jan. 11, sneeka announced, “Got him. He's in my house, door closed. He's exploring.”

With a bit of beef and a little of ingenuity, the dog had been captured.

Nica and Ben Davidman aka sneeka and “Mr. Sneeka,” respectively, whose porch the dog had favored, rigged up an ingenious way of luring the dog into the house and closing the door behind him. Nica had laid out small plates of food leading from the porch into the house. Ben rigged a ribbon on the door to close it once the dog was well inside the house. It worked like a charm. Except for one thing: “That's as far as we planned," said Ben. “We were like, 'Now what?'” They did, however, pick a name — Dexter, after the television series. Don't worry: The Davidmans feel assured that the dog bears no similarity to the sinister side of the character. His temperament is kind and gentle, and the vet gave him a good bill of health.

Even after he found a home, the Maplewood and South Orange community continued to come through for the Davidmans and Dexter. Offers came in for helping with vet bills, gifts of toys, dog food and, of course, loads of advice. Bath and Bubbles, a groomer on Parker, gave the Davidmans two dog beds.

The rest is up to them.

“The kids and Ben always wanted a dog,” remarked Nica, who wasn't so sure about pet ownership and had told her children that they could get a dog when they were 18. “But, I'm falling in love with him.”

To read the whole story from beginning to end vist the thread on MaplewoodOnline.