photo by: Contributed by KC REGAP

Midnight the greyhound relaxes outdoors after her wild and frightening adventure running loose in Lawrence for nearly a month this summer.

June 21 was supposed to mark a new beginning for Midnight, a skittish greyhound who had spent her first six years in a pen on a southeast Kansas farm.

She was a brood hound — impregnated twice a year — and producing puppies was her life.

Recently rescued from that fate, Midnight had just been spayed earlier that morning and was being delivered to a foster home in Lawrence — the first step toward a happier life with a loving family.

“Greyhounds make incredible pets,” said Julie Morrison, president of Kansas City Retired Greyhounds as Pets, a nonprofit popularly known as REGAP. “They are very loving, very sweet, soulful animals that we feel belong in a home.”

REGAP’s mission to get Midnight in a home, however, took a distressing turn when the handler arrived at the foster family’s residence and opened the vehicle’s door: Midnight bolted, knocking down the handler, with the force of a 75-pound projectile, and vanishing into the surrounding Deerfield Neighborhood.

Even though Midnight had never been a racing greyhound, her explosive flight from the door was similar to a racer who had been trained to rocket out of an opening chute.

“Nobody really expected her to be aware enough to do that,” said Morrison, referring to the anesthesia Midnight had been under just hours earlier, and no one was yet fully aware of the extreme extent of her skittishness and fear.

But they were about to be.

For the next 26 days, Midnight frantically crisscrossed the city, eluding capture in an anxiety-ridden drama that kept Lawrence’s dog-loving community on edge. And no one was more on edge than Morrison, who had not experienced anything similar in her nearly 30 years with REGAP.

“It was really, really scary,” she said.

Midnight was not only fresh from surgery, with a slew of tender stitches — “I just had visions in my head of her abdomen being open,” Morrison said — but was still wearing a leash, which could easily become entangled on something and trap or choke her. Additionally, she was in unfamiliar surroundings and was not used to people, city traffic or that July bane of dogs: fireworks.

Morrison immediately plastered the area with flyers and set up a command post. For the next several weeks she worked with a small army of REGAP volunteers, various dog lovers and a trio of Lawrence trappers — Patty Davis, Rusty Holladay and Larrie Ann Brown — with experience in catching loose dogs.

Davis, who helps run the Facebook group “Lost and Found Pets of Douglas County,” was one of those trappers. Davis’ group has a well-known passion locally for reuniting lost animals with their human companions.

She explained how after a few days on their own “dogs go into a feral, survival mode” and become increasingly difficult to catch, though numerous people throughout town certainly tried — well-intentioned attempts that universally backfired because being chased only frightened Midnight and caused her to flee her “safe area.”

More than anything, it was the simple reported sightings that helped in the pursuit.

“We need sightings to catch a dog,” Davis said, noting that the community involvement in that regard was “outrageously” good.

People would note that they saw Midnight on their doorbell camera or hanging out by the railroad tracks or the river or wandering through a particular neighborhood. On July 3 she apparently became stuck under someone’s porch — Davis figured she was hiding there from fireworks — and she chewed her leash off to free herself.

photo by: Contributed

Midnight ventures into a kennel that was set up to capture her, but the greyhound exited without triggering the trap.

Morrison believes that during the month there was only one 24-hour period where there wasn’t a sighting as Midnight ran around town from the Deerfield Neighborhood to Old West Lawrence, to the Kansas River, to the 31st and Kasold area, to 23rd Street and eastern Lawrence.

As the sightings were reported, the trappers set up kennel traps with cameras. At first Midnight didn’t seem terribly interested in eating, but the trappers used increasingly high-quality treats like rotisserie chicken and grilled steak, which seemed to be Midnight’s favorite.

Davis joked that her freezer “was emptied on that dog,” who became adept at taking the meat without triggering the trap.

Another critter — an ungainly possum — was not so adept and wound up getting caught while the agile Midnight sauntered off. Also visiting the traps but not getting caught were an owl, a coyote and a bobcat, Davis said.

photo by: Contributed

A possum hisses after being caught in a trap that was set for Midnight the greyhound.

photo by: Contributed

An owl visits a trap that was set up to capture Midnight the greyhound.

photo by: Contributed

A coyote visits a trap that was set up to capture Midnight the greyhound.

People watching the saga unfold online started referring to “Midnight’s Miracle” — the fact that she had thus far survived, even though she had spent a sheltered life in a farm pen. She hadn’t been brutalized by another dog or killed by a car, although there was a rumor that she had been hit by a vehicle because she had acquired a limp, a condition later attributed to a broken toe, not a car strike.

In the end, Midnight’s wild adventure came to a close much more peacefully than it began, on a rainy Sunday at an organic farm in eastern Lawrence.

Jill Elmers, owner of Moon on the Meadow Farm, was having brunch and watching the Tour de France on TV with a group of friends when her dog Obi starting barking out the front door.

“I looked out, and she (Midnight) was out in the yard,” Elmers said.

Elmers was vaguely aware of a missing greyhound running around town, but as a farmer she doesn’t have much time for Facebook in midsummer. She hadn’t realized the situation was still going on nearly a month later.

Luckily, a guest of Elmers’, Karen Komp, was completely up to date on Midnight’s plight, and promptly pulled a piece of paper from her purse with numbers to call if Midnight was spotted. And, most importantly, Komp knew the No. 1 rule: Do not, under any circumstances, chase Midnight.

Left to her own desires, Midnight wandered into the small door of a garage, which Elmers was in the habit of leaving open so that Obi could get a drink. As the storm outside picked up, Midnight made her way to a corner of the garage and settled down for a nap.

When Elmers and her friends felt Midnight was secure, they walked around and quietly closed the small door, leaving her to snooze until Morrison’s group could come reclaim her.

“It’s a blessing that it happened,” Elmers said, “that she was able to get into the garage and feel safe.”

Morrison was stunned when she received the call: “I was like, what? What did you just say? Can you say that again? And she said, ‘Yeah, we have her safely contained in the garage.'”

Noting that Elmers’ farm is on the eastern edge of Lawrence, Morrison said, “If she had gone even a mile more east, she would’ve been in complete farmland. … She could’ve made it all the way to Eudora without anybody seeing her.”

When Morrison got the scared Midnight back in a crate to transport her, she took no chances.

“We zip-tied the crate shut, even though it had good clasps and everything,” she laughed. “I was like, she is not getting out!”

Morrison and Davis were both thankful for the village effort, the vigilance and the plain old luck that combined for a happy ending.

Aside from the broken toe, Midnight was in great condition. Her surgical wound had healed perfectly, Morrison was relieved to see, and the sleek, healthy greyhound is now back on track to one day get a forever home.

Until that day, Morrison is keeping her close by, opting to foster Midnight in her own home.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” she said. “I was just shocked at the outpouring of care.”

photo by: Contributed by KC REGAP

Midnight the greyhound rests peacefully after being secured in late July following her nearly monthlong escape in Lawrence.