19 Feb 2014
Lost dog reunites with owner 1 month after running away in Horse Gulch
M’Lissa Roulson is excited to be reunited with her one-year-old golden retriever named Charlie after she ran away from her and disappeared in Horse Gulch for a month.
This flier was posted at Horse Gulch trail head when Roulson was looking for this cute dog named Charlie. Note the irony of the lost dog flier on a sign reminding people to have their dogs on a leash.
It was yesterday–about thirty days later–that Roulson finally got Charlie back while hiking with some of her other dogs in Horse Gulch.
There had been sightings of Charlie in the vicinity of Horse Gulch trail head. Specifically, Charlie been seen at Sonic, where many dogs and cats at large go to dumpster dive.
Roulson said that she had only had Charlie for about 1 week, and Charlie’s timidness was apparent from the beginning.
Having been abused in a previous home, Charlie was scared by all of the people that she encountered while walking with M’Lissa up in Horse Gulch.
When she decided to let Charlie off of the leash, she realized how scared Charlie was of all the other people passing by. Charlie got spooked and took off in fear.
“That was kind of this horrible beginning,” said Roulson.
Roulson tried to track Charlie down. She talked to the Humane Society. She also talked to workers at Sonic, and construction workers at the ongoing construction project at Horse Gulch trail head.
“We had sightings of her almost every day, but she would run off,” she said. “Nobody could ever get close to her at all.”
Roulson had a few other women helping her to find Charlie, but none of them could catch her.
“It was heart wrenching because then we would just have to leave her up there because she wouldn’t come to any of us.”
On the thirtieth day of hiking up in Horse Gulch, trying to find Charlie, Roulson and her other dogs saw her, and approached her.
“For whatever reason, she was sitting there, it was kind of a stare down, and then my dogs went up to her.
“She recognized my chocolate Lab, and they started to play,” said Roulson. “So I slowly got food out, and just kind of hunkered down, and let them kind of play a little bit. And then she came up and I fed her, and was able to grab a leash, and hold on to her and love on her and hang out, and not move too fast.”
“This was a nice way for it to happen and occur, rather than cause any more trauma.”
” It’s pretty amazing. She braved all of the single digit weather–when it would be 4 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 degrees. It just took some kind of experimentation and real perseverance to figure out how best to keep her alive.”
“For me, it was just a big deal not to ever give up,” said Roulson. “I know that might sound cheesy. Everybody is different. The perseverance and being hopeful was quite the exercise.”
They finally caught her today! She spent one month in the Gulch.
Durango Cyclery
February 18th, 2014 at 6:10 pmpermalink
That’s some really good news. Thanks for the update! 🙂
Adam Howell
February 18th, 2014 at 7:42 pmpermalink
So glad to hear of a happy ending.
Kingdom of Horses
March 28th, 2014 at 7:17 pmpermalink