HINTON – Dogs are known for their devotion to people, but a group of people in the Hinton area are proving their devotion to man’s best friend.
Last week, a dog now known as Bailey, came into the care of the Hinton and District SPCA. She was discovered this past summer in the lonely back country about 70 kilometres southeast of Hinton.
“She may not have had a lot of contact with a lot of people,” says Debi Morin Huber with the Hinton and District SPCA.
“I tracked her some more and I figured out her patterns,” Russell Smutt tells Global News. He was among one of the first people to notice the Pyrenees-cross.
Soon, news of the dog made it to social media, and a handful of people stepped up spending days even weeks looking for the dog, trying to rescue her.
“Everyday you would think about her and say, ‘I’m really tired today.’ And then you’d say how could I not go out there and try and do what I can,” says Hinton resident Laura Balcaen.
Despite people leaving food for her, Bailey was thin and weak. But there were other issues: the area she was found was clear cut removing any shelter. Also, predators started to move in.
“Wolves would just take their time and when they saw her get too weak, they would have moved in,” indicates rescuer Ken Lundrigan. “She was on borrowed time.”
With time ticking, a vet was consulted and a sedative was used in the successful rescue attempt.
“We just kind of blocked her in and slowly just kept moving closer and she was getting more tired,” describes Balcaen.
“I just ran in and I went to go and make a grab for her mouth and I missed,” says Lundrigan. “But I wasn’t going to let go at that time. She bit me, no big deal.”
“It was a long process. She was very timid, very scared,” says Balcaen.
Lundrigan still bares some puncture wounds and has had a rabies shot, indicating he has no regrets.
The dog is currently under quarantine at the SPCA, where questions continue about where she came from. It’s suspected Bailey spent four months or more alone in the back country.
“She’s probably dog number five that has come to us through the years that has gone feral for one reason or the other,” says Debi Morin Huber with the organization. “She’s probably one of the longer time frames.”
Bailey remains timid around strangers. Plans are underway to give her a new home and her adoptee is the man who noticed her months ago in the bush. Russell Smutt has a small farm and knows Bailey, who’s believed to be five years old, will like the space.
“She doesn’t have a whole lot of time left because this ordeal has probably take a few years out of her. But the time she has left will be good ones,” says Smutt.
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