It takes a village to raise a child. But as it turns out, it takes an entire community to rescue a dog. This is a story about our six-year-old rescue Husky Cooper and how an astonishing number of people stepped up to save her life.
This extraordinary effort occurred over a 24-hour period last week. She was spooked just after we moved to Priddis, Alberta from Vancouver, just five days before the events I am about to describe, unfolded.
Our new house was full of trades making adjustments to our home when someone unintentionally left a door or gate open. She clearly perceived it as her chance for freedom and ran off at her top speed of about 40 km.
A massive search began immediately, and she was spotted several times, but avoided attempts to coax her back and was living her adventure.
But when she crossed Highway 22X a couple of hours later, heading North, we feared the worst.
Simultaneously, neighbours, strangers in virtually every case, rallied to help. Facebook became a tour de force as news of her disappearance spread. One person across the street started printing up posters, others took to their vehicles, while others searched and called the name of a dog they had never met, for hours.
As darkness set in, we became more and more desperate.
We knew the perils: wild animals in a landscape unfamiliar to Cooper. And freezing temperatures. Not to mention highway traffic, barbed wire fences, and cold and fast-moving streams. The worst fears came overnight as we had to abandon the search. Not normally a pessimist, I didn’t think we’d ever see her again.
Then, hope, the next morning.
After thousands of Facebook posts, Simon, our son, took a call from a man in the Bragg Creek area, 25 km from our home in Priddis, saying he thought he had spotted Cooper in the community. His prompt action bought us time and probably saved her life.
We raced to Bragg Creek. Unbeknownst to us, literally a dozen good Samaritans from Priddis headed to Bragg Creek to join in the recovery. Then finally a miracle.
Jill, our daughter-in-law, spotted Cooper heading out of town towards Kananaskis and astonishingly a tired, bedraggled, bleeding Cooper came up and nuzzled her.
Jill grabbed her collar, and our heartbreak was over. Within minutes, her rescue was out on the bush telegraph and literally a dozen cars converged on the site. About 25 adults gathered around her and I swear everyone was crying.
She needed stitches for two gashes on her paws, had part of her paw pad removed and was put on a course antibiotic for an infection…but was otherwise only in need of some TLC. Even the vet thought her survival was a miracle. It was. Others thought the chances of her surviving that long were perhaps 1%, at best. Certainly, she was five minutes away from the trails to Kananaskis, and it is doubtful, by all accounts, that we would ever have seen her again.
But even though her rescue was a miracle, in many ways an even bigger miracle, for us, is the new community we find ourselves living in. Complete strangers abandoned their lives to find our beloved Cooper.
So, thank you Priddis. Thank you, Bragg Creek. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
And as Cooper recovers, sleeping off her adventure, she would want to thank you ALL too. What a fantastic community…so many heroes we will never forget. It was for us renewed faith in the human spirit.
Clive Jackson
