Willie’s Big Adventure ends in a miracle

One Hundred and Thirty-Three Days

By Judy Byron

“Are you the lady from Colorado looking for that lost little white dog?” It was a greeting I had become all too familiar with. Today, it came from a scruffy old man in a beat-up maroon Chevy pickup with a battered cowboy hat. “Yeah,” I replied, raising my hand, slightly breathless from hurdling the irrigation ditch and squeezing through the barbed wire fence. Other times, I’d see faces I recognized. “Find Willie yet?” I would frown, shake my head, and choke out a “no.” “Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking. He’ll turn up.”

Willie is my dog, a small pug/Boston terrier mix I rescued from GVAWL (Gunnison Valley Animal Welfare League) about nine years ago (who rescued whom?). Even though he hated riding in the car, we’d seen the Mississippi River, Mt. Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Ocean, Arches, etc.  He’d logged countless miles happily trotting behind me on horseback or running next to me on the Nordic tracks. He loved camping in the West Elks, curled up by the campfire with his two black lab roommates. 

But my little white dog Willie, with the snaggle tooth smile, went missing. He ran off in a panic on July 14 in Kamas, Utah, two hours before I was to attend the rehearsal for my niece’s wedding — which I was officiating. Kamas is a small, rural valley town about 15 miles east of Park City, surrounded by hundreds of acres of pasture grazing cattle, thick green hayfields, and humble homes and businesses…and the most amazing people I have ever met and never met.

Within hours of his disappearance, the entire town was on high alert. Strangers posted flyers everywhere. Neighbors were out on their four-wheelers, patrolling the high desert foothills. High school girls in giggling groups gathered in the school parking lot. Elderly couples out for their evening walk promised to keep their eyes open. Guys from the Deer Valley Ski Patrol offered their heat-seeking drones. A beautiful woman I called Angel Amy searched every day, morning till night. My family’s younger, social media-savvy members alerted every shelter, veterinarian, animal control agency, lost-dog Facebook page and police station within 200 miles. My sister Jody, who lives in Park City, would drop everything immediately and head over to Kamas if Willie had been spotted. She even started driving there for her two dogs’ morning runs.  

The first couple of days, we were encouraged by what we called “sightings.” The first was near the neighborhood where Willie bolted from. It was a high alpine desert with scrub oak, rocks, sand and no water. July was especially hot and an inferno – 100 degrees plus. I hiked the dirt roads and trails, calling his name until I was hoarse. I was sure he would pop his little head out from behind a bush and come running to me. After five hours of this and worrying that I was succumbing to heat exhaustion, I returned to my car. I drank a White Claw in about 23 seconds and started questioning my sensibilities, not to mention my dog, who had gone AWOL in the Utah backcountry. If Willie didn’t find water, there was no way he would survive out there.

Still, helplessness and sadness consumed me. It was now day five, and Willie was nowhere to be found. Knowing I had a small volunteer army on the ground in Kamas, I finally decided to return to Crested Butte without him. I sobbed as I crossed the border from Utah into Colorado. I had terrific women fielding texts and regular reports of their efforts and endless faith that Willie would be found. Everyone in Kamas had promised to keep their eyes open. The guy at the bakery, the hardware store, and the 7-11. The ATV rental place just outside of town where I had climbed the fence, ignoring the no trespassing signs. Bartenders and sheepherders and Facebookers.

I made four more trips to Park City and Kamas in six weeks. Willie had been seen several times around Kamas, which meant he crossed a busy highway out of the inferno and followed the river (water!) three miles into town. He was reported sleeping on someone’s deck but ran off when a door was opened. He was seen by the storage units and by the school. Willie was being spotted regularly, but no one could get near him. Willie was a street dog from West Texas when I adopted him, so I had pretty good confidence in his ability to survive on vermin, snakes and trash. But the highway, the coyotes and the weeks that had gone by…still, I hoped.

 Two weeks in, I got a call from my sister saying she had seen Willie and got close to him, but he had run from her. I started driving west at 5 a.m. the following morning. Surely, if Willie heard my voice or saw me, he would end this madness. It had been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, and I was beside myself, tearing up at the mere mention of him. Collectively, there were hundreds of hours and hundreds of miles logged looking for this damn dog. 

I arrived in Kamas around 1 p.m. Two hours later I saw him! I got within 30 feet of him! Willie saw me, and he heard me! OH MY GOD, YES!!! And then, he tucked his tail and ran away from me, disappearing into the tall hay. In disbelief, I knelt and cried, crushed. WTF??? Slowly, I realized that maybe I wasn’t looking for the same dog that curled up on the couch with me every night. Maybe Willie had snapped and gone feral – a state where a dog only knows pure survival instinct and a fear of humans.

I made one more trip to Kamas after that, and after three hours of searching, I began to realize the futility of my desperate attempt to find him — faith and hope were running low. I was chasing a running, four-legged needle in a haystack. The “sightings” had stopped. It was time to call off the active search, at least for me, driving from CB to Kamas at 5 a.m. anytime Willie was seen. Maybe, when the snow and cold set in, the good people of Kamas would remember him when they saw a little white stray dog. I was finally able to talk about Willie without choking up. Not knowing what happened to him was agonizing, and I prayed he didn’t suffer. That my dog was probably dead was a reality that was hard to swallow, but I had to move on, and it was mid-October.

July 14 to November 25 is 133 days. Driving out of Grand Junction from Park City after Thanksgiving, my sister called. “Are you sitting down?” I’m sure I had some smart-ass reply – I’m driving. “We found Willie,” she said. Silence. At 72 mph on Hwy 50, there are plenty of good places to put a car into the ditch (I didn’t). Another WTF?  Willie surrendered in the Kamas 7-11 parking lot, hanging out with a black lab, by one of the same Deer Valley Ski Patrol dudes who helped us back in July. My head was swirling; I did not know how even to comprehend this. So, I left Crested Butte at 5 the following morning to drive back to Utah to bring him home.  

And just like that, Willie is home. 

He lost a couple of teeth and had a stomach bug, but he strutted in the front door, hopped on the couch and acted like nothing happened. Not a bit worse for wear and tear. Little sh*t! Four-and-a-half months. It is so amazing and unbelievable! A bit of peace I found while Willie was gone was my restored faith in humanity and the goodness in people I had never met, who kept their eyes and hearts open, who were happy to help and believed, “Don’t worry, he’ll turn up.” Their willingness to help find a stranger’s dog was as incredible as the idea that my dog was gone. There are more good people in this world than bad, even when it comes to a little white dog from Colorado.

As for Willie, he has much explaining to do, but he’s not talking yet. And he’s grounded. So am I…in believing. I believe in fairies and elves and Santa. He’ll turn up.