Community effort finds Far Rockaway border collie

TJ, a 1-year-old border collie, had been missing from its Far Rockaway home for roughly two weeks, and after taking a sight-seeing tour of the Five Towns the canine was found with the help of a few people.

Missing since March 13, TJ had been spotted in Cedarhurst and Woodmere. He was found inside a cage trap on the morning of March 21 in Cedarhurst by Christine Drakatos, the founder of BRAT Rescue Inc., a Far Rockaway-based nonprofit that aims to save animals from the streets or situations where they are being abused.

“Saturday night (March 20) I never went to sleep and was driving around all night with no sightings at all,” she said. “Then when I was about to leave and close down the traps. He was inside one of them.”
Drakatos, who has been rescuing animals, mostly dogs and cats, nearly her entire life added that she waited until the morning hours to approach TJ so there were less people around to scare him.

Woodmere resident Rebecca Kaye is a dog walker who said she first spotted TJ running down West Broadway in Woodmere on March 13. “I stopped traffic and avoided getting hit to jump out and try to catch him,” she said. “I chased him off West Broadway and near the Lawrence Woodmere Academy area. He was very elusive so I lost him.”

Kaye then reached out to the 4th Precinct and they had a report of a missing dog that matched TJ’s description. “I have a lot of groups that I follow on Facebook that have to do with dogs and I started posting on them immediately,” she said. “Christine reached out and told me that she could help out. I put her in touch with TJ’s owner.” TJ’s owner could not be reached for comment by press time.

According to Kaye, TJ had been spotted roughly 20 times since March 13, but he was hard to catch. “We were all driving around a lot, but nobody could catch him since he was so fast,” she said. “Every time we saw him, he just ran from us. This was really a community effort in finding TJ.”
While Kaye acknowledged that it was a team effort, she noted that Drakatos led the way in finding TJ.

“Christine does not get paid to do this,” Kaye said. “She sat out for two nights in a row until 5 to 6 a.m., out of the goodness of her heart, tracking this boy before she finally caught him.”

Drakatos was appreciative of all the people who contributed to finding TJ, who she said was the 982nd dog she helped rescue in the Far Rockaway area since 2008. “To the person who made the flyers and the one who hung them up and to all the people who called in with sightings and the ones who laid food out for this boy to eat,” she said. “This was a great team effort.”

Donations can be made to BRAT Rescue Inc. at: https://bit.ly/3185iQ8.