Hi everyone!! I’m sorry that this is so late but I figured I should make an update post since so many people were invested and are still reaching out!

I have incredible news. Quesadilla was missing for 35 days but we were finally able to get her home. It took thermal drone searches, search & rescue k9s, lots of tracking, trail cams, group searches, and live traps!!

There was a ton of campaigning and we searched day and night for her. If anyone is going through a similar situation don’t give up hope!! All of the neighborhoods in my proximity were aware of her disappearance and still there were no direct sightings of her. Everyone was searching, but she was a very elusive lady.

Finally, a week before she was caught, my mom just thought to place a trail cam at a neighboring property across the road (and actually quite far from the house she escaped from) on a log pile. She showed up on the camera around 3 am!!

All of the live traps that we had placed out (and had only been catching raccoons and possums) were moved to that location. The next night quesadilla was spotted on the camera right next to the trap, but then a raccoon went into the trap and set it off 😭 and the next night she went right into the trap but it didn’t deploy!!! Finally the last night she went into the trap and she was caught.

SHE IS SAFE!! And happy! Back to being same old quesadilla. Miraculously she checked out fine at the vet and only lost 2 lbs. Quesadilla was missing through the 4th of July fireworks, extreme heat warnings, and terrible air quality through the wildfires up north. We tried so many different things like scent drags, leaving out food, leaving the garage door open, wearing clothes and leaving them out/leaving trails of them, searching at night, but in the end it was the trail cams and the live traps that helped us bring her home.

If anyone has any questions or is going through something similar and needs some advice on what worked for us I would be happy to message with you!!

The drone service that we used was SkyView Drone Services. Cody was incredible and came out pretty much every night that Quesadilla was missing to scan all possible areas with his thermal drone. I would recommend him!! He is a pro at it and really cares about bringing your pet home. We paid him the one time to come out and look for her and when we didn’t find her the first night he was determined to keep coming out and searching free of charge. That really tells you how much he cares and we were so grateful.

We also reached out to Karin Tarqwyn and had her venture out to search for quesadilla with her dogs Jett & Pink. That was super cool to see. She has trained her dogs in tracking lost cats (which is something a lot of k9 trackers don’t offer since they can be more difficult). Karin had said that when she first came out she was worried that quesadilla was going to be a “coyote case” because of the coyotes in the area. However, her dogs continued to pick up live scents and it was super cool to see how Jett could pick up on chronological scents!! They were able to track where she had ventured to (and she went FAR) before she started looping back around and heading closer to the home.

I want to thank everyone for all of their kind wishes and the massive support from everyone. Quesadilla is my entire world and I genuinely did not want to go on living without her. It was the worst 35 days with sleepless nights and a lot of tears but all of the hard work paid off! And as I’m typing this she’s cuddling right on my chest!!

I’m not trying to make one of the complaining about drivers kind of post, but why do many drivers (most of which are Uber or other transportation drivers based on their stickers) drive well below the speed limit? Like, I’ll be driving the limit on 35W and there’s someone doing 40 with no one in front of them and I’ll have to swiftly slow down to their speed. As much as it’s dangerous to treat the freeway like a speedway, it’s just as dangerous to go as slow as a turtle on the freeways.

Please don’t obstruct bus stops. If there is not room for the bus to safely park the bus driver may just skip the stop. Remember a city is a living ecosystem. You can either be a benefit or a bane to that ecosystem.

Story: This guy was parked in front of the bus stop for about thirty minutes talking on his phone. At least one bus I saw honked at him and skipped the stop because of it. My friend who is simply very very non confrontational had to walk down to the next bus stop in the rain because of this guy. Cops eventually showed and told him to get lost. He did. Story over.

This guy is a selfish bully. I hope he sees this.

Brit here following you folks and boy this hit me. Why? Because I survived the HIV/Aids era and I know many people who are on the Australian AIDS Quilt. Seeing this thread followed through to your city is very moving.

Fight the power.

Luckily, he was out voted by the rest of the city council.

Cathedral up the hill

Charging $800+ for a 1.5 hour flight in the Midwest to another hub is unsustainable. There are often no alternatives. We need more competition and a cap on flight prices at MSP.