Tag: lost dog

14-Year-Old Lost Dog Found After 2 Months in Utah Canyon

Apparently this is “Amazingly Lucky Senior Dog Week.” A few days ago, a 13-year-old blind dog named Cesar was rescued after he wandered out of his yard — and fell into a 15-foot-deep hole at the construction site next door. Despite his ordeal, Cesar wasn’t seriously injured.

Yet another senior dog who’s losing his eyesight is also safe and sound at home this week after a very scary experience.

During a July camping trip to Payson Canyon, Utah, a 14-year-old Great Pyrenees/Collie mix named Toby wandered away from his family and seemed to disappear. His family spent the next few weeks searching for Toby. Neither search dogs, trail cameras or drones could locate the senior dog.

“Toby is old and going blind. He is likely afraid and confused,” his owner wrote on July 25 in a Utah – Lost Dogs, Cats & Pets Facebook group post. “We are so worried about him, and we just want him. He is the sweetest dog and is not aggressive at all, so he is easily approachable.”

Nearly two months after Toby’s disappearance, his family was contacted by someone who recognized his picture in that Facebook post.

“Once he went downhill and couldn’t get back up the mountain, he found a spot with shade and water and just laid around,” Toby’s unidentified owner told KUTV. That spot was about a mile and a half away from his family’s campsite.

“He did not do much traveling,” Toby’s owner added. “Laid there for two months and waited for something to happen… for someone to find him and kept himself alive.”

Toby, who weighed about 75 pounds before his disappearance, lost about 30 pounds. He was otherwise healthy — and is probably extremely happy to be back home.

Photo: Utah – Lost Dogs, Cats & Pets/Facebook

17-Year-Old Deaf Dog Rescued After Spending 4 Days in Ravine

Sadie was on a walk in Connecticut’s Sleeping Giant State Park last Saturday afternoon when the deaf, 17-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever slipped out of her collar and took off.

To the horror of her dog dad, Chris Roush, Sadie went over the side of a hill…and then disappeared. When Roush couldn’t find her, he enlisted the help of friends, family and social media to help search for Sadie. He posted fliers all around the 1,500-acre state park.

Although Roush, who’s the new dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University, had just moved to the town the week before, strangers were more than happy to help him and his family find their beloved dog.

They “just started volunteering,” Roush told the Hartford Courant. “People I never knew and had never met came out to help. The community response was just unbelievable.”

Even Judy Olian, the president of Quinnipiac University, allowed the school’s drone to be used to try to locate Sadie.

Good Samaritans to the Rescue

But what wasn’t at all helpful was a storm that blew into town four days after Sadie went missing. Fortunately, Steve Tobey was searching for Sadie in the rain when he heard a dog whimpering near a trail not far from where she’d disappeared at Sleeping Giant. Soon after he posted it on social media, Toby Drums and Russell Lewis — who don’t know Roush — also started hiking around the area where the dog was heard.

Lewis, who often hikes with his own dogs in the state park, had been figuring that the worst had happened to the 17-year-old, deaf dog.  “But then this (new) post, I was just really excited and that’s what got me out there despite the storms,” he told the Hartford Courant.

Drums and his wife also have four dogs who they’ve walked in the park for years. Wearing headlamps, the couple had searched for Sadie every night after work. “We’re dog people and they’re getting older and to hear about a 17-year-old dog, deaf, lost in the woods is heartbreaking,” Drums told the New Haven Register.

As Drums and Lewis walked along a trail in the rain Wednesday, Drums heard Sadie barking. In the meantime, Roush had seen the hiker’s post and rushed to the park, joining Lewis, Drums and the others.

Sadie had fallen between boulders. To locate her, the group lowered Lewis by his ankles headfirst into a crevice.

“It was ridiculous, but I heard her crying so I started crawling a little bit deeper,” Lewis told the Hartford Courant. “She’s really, really deep in there and she’s wedged in between these two rocks; you could just see her back.”

It took a village, but the group was finally able to cautiously free Sadie from her predicament. The Hamden Fire Department soon arrived to help the rescuers.

A Tale of ‘Survival, Perseverance and More Than a Little Luck’

“This is a story of survival, perseverance and more than a little luck!” the Hamden Fire Department wrote on its Facebook page the day after Sadie was rescued.

Despite her ordeal, Sadie is expected to make a full recovery. She received treatment for cuts, scratches and dehydration at VCA Cheshire Animal Hospital. “From what the vet told me, it looked like she had been trying to dig out,” Roush told the New Haven Register.

As for the Roushes, they’re eternally grateful not only to have Sadie back but for all the compassionate volunteers who helped them find her.

“How lousy is it to move to a new place and lose your dog in the first week?” Lewis told the Hartford Courant. “But so many people stepped up to help and that’s the coolest part of the story to me.”

Photo: Hamden Fire Department/Facebook

California Man Finds Therapy Dog Lost During Las Vegas Shooting

Ryan Needham and his fiancee, who live in Phelan, Calif., survived the terrible mass shooting in Las Vegas, but Needham’s beloved therapy dog went missing for a few days.

Needham is an owner of a concession company that had a booth at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Roulette, aka Rou, is a black French Bulldog who was with Needham’s fiancee as she worked there Sunday night. Needham was driving near the venue when the gunfire erupted. One of the employees opened Rou’s crate and tried to grab her, but the terrified dog wriggled away and ran off, getting lost in the crowd of 22,000 people also desperately trying to flee the area.

“There were so many people trying to get away, we didn’t know if she had been stepped on or hurt, or worse,” Needham told KABC. “It was just a horrible, horrible situation.”

The couple remained in Las Vegas for a few days, desperately searching for Needham’s therapy dog. “We haven’t slept yet”, he told News 3.

As the news of Rou’s disappearance spread, thousands of people from around the world volunteered to do what they could to find her. Strangers created Facebook pages and posted the lost dog’s information online. “We never would have guessed so many people would have stepped forward to help,” Needham told KABC. “The best thing is it shows there are so many good people. So many people willing to try to help other people.”

Good news: Needham and his fiancee can now get some much-needed sleep. Their beloved Rou has been found alive and is now safely back at home in California with them.

Needham saw Rou running in a field next to the shooting site. “I jumped over the fence, I kneeled down, she ran and jumped into my arms!” he told News 3 this morning. (According to KABC, however, Rou was found inside an apartment complex. Needham believed she had been running back and forth from there to her crate in the concessions area, part of the crime scene that has been roped off by police. Either way, what’s important is that she was found alive.)

Rou lost some weight and appeared to be somewhat traumatized from her ordeal. Needham was thrilled she’s still alive.

“I’m so glad everybody’s spirits can be lifted by our dog’s story,” he told News 3. “Maybe it can help a little. This dog is a symbol of hope. She’s the new mascot for Vegas.”

Here’s information about how to help victims of the Las Vegas massacre.

Photo via PawBoost.com

Awww: Wisconsin Tornado Survivor Reunited with Lost Dogs

When a tornado with 120 mile-per-hour winds tore through northwestern Wisconsin Tuesday, it took two lives and destroyed dozens of homes.

One of the destroyed mobile homes belonged to Ron Belcher of Prairie Lake Estates. He was home with the two dogs he considers his children, Cocoa the Husky and Taz the Pomeranian, when the EF2 tornado struck.

“It came up all of a sudden and then it was so loud, and it got so dark,” he told WQOW. “Your windows are already busted, and … the roof came off. And then things were just flying, refrigerators flying, it was just unbelievable.”

Belcher was knocked unconscious by a collapsing wall. When he woke up, his home was in shambles and, most importantly, Cocoa and Taz were nowhere to be found. He feared the worst.

Emergency responders found Belcher and took him to a hospital, where he was treated for several broken bones, cuts and a head injury.

As Belcher recovered, a wonderful Marshfield Clinic nurse named Ciara Rockow took it upon herself to go looking for Cocoa and Taz. Her kind efforts quickly paid off. She found both of them, alive and well, at the Animal Hospital of Chetek.

Two days after Belcher thought he’d lost his dogs forever, hospital staff brought Cocoa and Taz to his bed.

“This is God’s gift, that’s what keeps me moving no matter how many bad things happen,” Belcher, whose recovery is expected to take six to eight weeks, told WQOW.

Their happy reunion was caught on video — grab a tissue or 10!

If Marshfield Clinic has a Nurse of the Year award, here’s hoping it’s bestowed upon Rockow.

Also deserving plenty of accolades are all the people who generously donated much-needed supplies to the Animal Hospital of Chetek. The hospital is caring for displaced pets free of charge.

“We’ve had an outpouring of people asking to help with the pets affected by the tornado,” the hospital stated on its Facebook page Thursday. “We have all the supplies we need and the Humane Society of Barron County is going to help us make arrangements to foster some of the pets that have been found.”

If you want to help, according to the hospital the best way is to make a donation to the Humane Society of Barron County or to the Veterinary Care Foundation (select Wisconsin and Animal Hospital of Chetek).

Police Officer Uses Drone to Find Dog Lost in Woods

While drones may be generally regarded as an annoyance rather than an asset, they can actually serve some very positive purposes (like saving endangered whales, for instance). In Pennsylvania over the weekend, Upper Gwynedd Township Police Officer Yin Young found another great way to use an unmanned aircraft: to find a young dog lost in the woods.

After Kasi, a 10-month-old German Shepherd, escaped from her yard Saturday, her dog dad, George Burns, tried to find her on foot, according to the Upper Gwynedd Township Police Facebook page.

When that didn’t work, Burns got the attention of Officer Young, who came up with the idea of attaching a high-definition video camera to his personal drone. He sent it flying over the nearby woods.

It took only about 20 minutes for the drone to find Kasi. She and Burns were happily reunited soon afterward.

“It was a good idea,” Sergeant John Brinkman told NBC10. “We don’t want the owner to get hurt unnecessarily looking for the dog.”

In the near future, this good idea might be used more often by the police department to locate missing pets as well as people. “It’s all about keeping people safe,” Brinkman said.

Photo via Facebook

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