When a purebred rough collie went missing before Christmas, it took a village to return the errant pooch to his rural Alberta home after two weeks on the lam.
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The adventures of Oreo took him 60 kilometres from his rural home to Leduc County in frigid weather, but only the dog knows how he came to be so far from Westerose — and he’s not talking.
Social media posts with photos of a beautiful tri-colour Lassie-type dog on the roam alerted Heather Hempstock to Oreo’s plight.
Hempstock breeds and shows both rough and smooth collies, and she’s the Alberta area director for the Collie Club of Canada.
Word spread in the collie community: someone’s beloved pet had to be missing. The handsome long-nosed dogs don’t often go missing, she said.
“It’s a very small community. When something like that happens, it’s very rare,” she said.
She lives an hour from Leduc, in Camrose, but she knew she had to respond.
‘I couldn’t give up on him’
A photo showed Oreo in a spot not far from a dog kennel, and Hempstock’s mind raced to fill in the blanks: a boarded dog escaped in hopes of finding his family?
Collies, she knew, like to be with their people.
Along with other searchers, including Leduc County bylaw enforcement, she found him in a field, but he was skittish.
“As soon as we went towards him, he went far back into the tree line again,” she recalled.
Knowing the breed, Hempstock couldn’t walk away.
“I couldn’t give up on him. Collies do not do well on their own. They’re not feral dogs at all,” she said.
She headed south on a township road and saw something black in the middle of the road.
“I get a little closer, and sure enough, it’s him,” she said.
Hempstock had a big bowl of food and started throwing it toward him. She sat quietly on the road.
The food motivated the hungry dog, who came closer.
She then brought out her own female rough collie, Rosie, and made an enticing little pile of food, which brought Oreo closer.
He came to check Rosie out and nibbled from the pile of food.
A hero in her own right, Rosie stood stock still, and Hempstock, cooing in reassuring tones, was able to touch Oreo’s ruff and eventually slip a leash over his head.
He was emaciated. Hempstock could tell he’d been to the groomers (his nails, teeth and eyes were in great shape), so she figured he hadn’t been dumped by an owner. She speculated that he had either been chased off, pursued by a female dog in heat, or taken.
“He just wanted to be found. He’s like, ‘You know what I am. You have one of me. I’m so relieved,’” Hempstock said.
Together with Leduc County bylaw, they found the owner through Oreo’s Canadian Kennel Club microchip.
Lessons and mysteries
So far, details are missing as to how Oreo ended far up Highway 2 from home, apparently holed up at an abandoned barn.
Heather Hempstock draws morals from Oreo’s account: make sure your microchip information is up to date, and if a dog goes missing, don’t just advertise in your immediate area.
Clarence Nelson is a bylaw enforcement officer for Leduc County. He said the dog’s licence tag may have been taken off.
“Lots of people think that a tag on a collar is good enough. In this case, he did have a collar and originally had a tag on its collar, but that tag was somehow removed,” Nelson said.
“No one knows where it went or how it got off the collar, but the one thing that was not able to be removed — by accident or on purpose — is the microchip.”
He noted the challenge of retrieving a dog that has been loose for weeks.
“Dogs don’t want to be captured after being running at large somewhere in rural Alberta for two weeks — that’s not uncommon with the breed. Not many dogs will, after that period of time, simply come up to a stranger and welcome them,” he said.
The will to survive seemed to have kicked in to help the long-haired dog weather a mid-December cold snap, Nelson said.
“Dogs are pretty resilient. Humans take a while to realize what they should do to stay warm, but dogs don’t take that much time. They’re pretty smart … It looks like the dog has been able to find its way somewhere so that it could actually stay warm … It’s a good news story,” he said.
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