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Mae Day: Dog’s 11 Months On The Run End With Happy Reunion

Perhaps the best known dog in Atmore is no longer on the run; she’s back home in Birmingham today, ending an 11-month game of cat and mouse.

Back on January 15, Vickie Clark’s son was visiting Atmore from Birmingham along with 15-month old Mae the dog. Mae jumped the fence, beginning the 11-month saga.

Atmore Animal Shelter employee Brandon James and other animal shelter employees began, very unsuccessfully, to capture Mae.

“She’s one of the smartest dogs I’ve ever come across,” James said Wednesday. “She’d smell you from a long way away and take off.”

The Clarks and the animal shelter turned to the community which in turn provided numerous Mae sighting reports over the past several months. Animal shelter employees would head out, only to be outsmarted or outrun by Mae each time.

“Brandon James has been my lifeline to the whereabouts of this lost puppy.  Our family looked for Mae numerous times but sadly she would run from familiar voices and was truly scared and in ‘flight’ mode,” Clark said in a letter praising James and the animal shelter. “Brandon and his team never gave up.  The community would contact Brandon with every Mae sighting and he would go out to try to capture this elusive rascal.  When I would start to lose hope, Brandon would lift me up and remind me to keep the faith that they would get our girl.  Brandon worked tirelessly to capture Mae in every way possible. ”

Members of the Atmore community would feed Mae. One resident would even toss her flea medication stuffed inside a hot dog on a regular basis. James called her “Atmore’s mascot”.

The was one capture  along the way but it turned out to be a male look alike.

Then there was a big break in the hunt for Mae last week. She was spotted in a fenced-in yard. James said an animal shelter staffer got close enough — from the upwind side — to hit her with a tranquilizer dart.

“I thought we had her since she was in a fenced-in yard, but no,” James said. “She got away, and then there was a three block foot chase. But she went down from the tranquilizer and we were able to pick her up.”

A quick check by a local veterinarian revealed that Mae was in remarkably perfect health — no worms, no other problems despite her 11-month time on the lam.

Mae was reunited with her “mom” Vickie Wednesday at the animal shelter. There was brief celebration, and then it was back home to Birmingham. Clark said she had no planned stops between Atmore and Birmingham to eliminate any other escape possibilities.

Pictured top: Mae reunited with her family Wednesday, along with members of the Atmore community and the Atmore Animal Shelter staff that took part in her 11-month rescue. Pictured inset: Atmore’s “mascot” dog Mae. Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.