Happy New Year for dog, owner as pet survives Montana wilds
By John Grant Emeigh
The Montana Standard
BUTTE, Mont.
An Arizona man is ringing in the New Year with good news after a local animal warden found his dog — which had been missing for a month — near Butte.
Phil Nichols and his 6-year-old lab mix, Buddy, became separated in November while stopped in Dillon, he told The Montana Standard in a telephone interview Friday.
Exactly when and how Buddy jumped out of his camper, Nichols isn’t sure.
But the news received this week that Buddy is alive — albeit thin, haggard and nursing a badly hurt back foot — has Nichols brimming with happiness.
The mutt wandered rugged terrain, endured freezing temperatures and BB shots — all with the lame foot — before being rescued this week near Buxton, southwest of Butte.
Animal control officer Charlie Dick said Friday that he is amazed the dog is alive.
“What a little survivor. He was out there a long time,” Dick said.
Buddy’s odyssey started on Nov. 28 when Nichols, 79, was driving back to Arizona in his pickup truck after visiting his daughter in Helena. Buddy rode in a camper in the bed of Nichols’ pickup truck. Nichols recalls seeing Buddy in the camper while in Dillon to gas up.
But when he stopped again in Idaho Falls to let Buddy out for a quick walk, his dog was gone.
“I turned around and drove 150 miles back to Dillon to look for him,” Nichols said.
He stayed in Dillon for a day and a half searching for his best friend, which he had adopted from an animal shelter.
Buddy was nowhere to be found.
With a heavy heart, Nichols finally called off the search and returned home to Arizona. He assumed Buddy may have fallen out or just got out of the camper through a small side door.
It turned out to be a lucky thing that Buddy wasn’t in the camper, however. Nichols crashed near Pocatello, Idaho, when another vehicle cut him off. He hit a guardrail and rolled. Nichols survived, but the camper was smashed to bits.
Nichols suspects Buddy may have had a “sixth sense” about the accident and got out of the camper before it was too late.
“I think the dog has more brains than I do,” he said.
It’s not known if Buddy has a sixth sense, but he certainly has a survival instinct.
Animal services got a call about 8:30 a.m. Thursday of a wounded dog hanging around the Buxton area, about 10 miles southwest of Butte. Buddy had scratches on his face, a badly wounded right rear foot and was thin.
“He was just wandering around on three feet and was very skittish,” Dick recalled.
It took Dick about 45 minutes to finally coax the dog toward him with treats.
Animal control people found Buddy’s owner through a lost dog ad on Craigslist, which had been posted by Nichols’ daughter in Helena.
Erin Wall, shelter director, said Buddy was recovering Friday at the Amherst Animal Hospital in Butte and appears to be doing well. She said it is amazing the dog managed to survive so long in his condition.
“They (dogs) have such an instinct to live and a homing drive to get home,” Wall said.
She suspects Buddy found food and shelter in barns, because he was covered with hay. X-rays also showed Buddy was shot with a BB gun.
At the shelter, Buddy appeared in good spirits, but exhausted.
“He just sat down, then lay down and let out a big sigh,” she said.
Nichols said he plans to reunite with his dog within the next few days — as soon as the vet says it is fine for Buddy to leave.
He wants to call the veterinarian hospital to let Buddy know he’s coming.
“I just want them to put the phone to his ear and let him hear my voice,” Nichols said. “I think that would make him feel better.”
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Information from: The Montana Standard, http://www.mtstandard.com
BILLINGS, Mont. – Five years after a cow dubbed the "Unsinkable Molly B" leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that drew international attention, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.
Molly B was among an estimated 1,200 animals removed from the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in recent weeks as part of a massive effort to bail out its overwhelmed owners.
Animal welfare groups said they were forced to euthanize dozens of starving and ill cattle, horses and llamas found on the 400-acre sanctuary in rural Sanders County.
The bovine celebrity herself - an overweight black Angus breed said to be sore in the hoof but otherwise relatively healthy - was removed to a nearby ranch and is headed this week to a smaller farm sanctuary.
"Molly B made it OK. She's a tough old broad," said Jerry Finch with Habitat for Horses of Hitchcock, Texas, who participated in the rescue effort. "She had bad feet, but she was not anywhere near as bad as some of the others."
Molly B's relocation to a 20-acre ranchette known as the New Dawn MT Sanctuary has proven an adventure in its own right. Local media stories had trumpeted her arrival at the Stevensville facility last week, including photos said to be of Molly B and new friend "Misty."
Yet when New Dawn owner Susan Eakins watched one of the reports on the nightly news, video of the cow climbing a hill revealed the sanctuary had gotten the wrong animal - a male steer named "Big Mike." A mix-up left Molly B behind on another ranch.
Her home since 2006, near the small town of Hot Springs, in recent years had grown into a sort of Noah's Ark-gone-wild - more than 600 llamas; at least 100 horses, donkeys and cattle; and a motley assortment of bison, camels, exotic rodents and other furry and feathered beasts.
Many of the animals were breeding. Rescuers said that allowed the sanctuary population to multiply unchecked, setting the stage for conditions to deteriorate rapidly after one of the facility's two full-time employees fell ill last year. As the situation worsened, word circulated among animal rescue groups across the country.
Patty Finch with the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries said by the time she called the Montana facility in late November to offer help, many of its animals were sick, dying or struggling to survive in increasingly cramped quarters.
"Molly is a good representative of what a betrayal it was to each of these animals. The sanctuary should be a line in the sand that means never again should you suffer," said Patty Finch, who said she has no relation to Jerry Finch.
Molly B's second retirement will start another chapter in an unlikely story that began January 2006, when a yet-to-be-named 1,200 pound heifer skipped her date with doom by leaping a 5-foot-5-inch fence at Mickey's Packing Plant in Great Falls.
The cow raced through town with police and animal control on her heels, reportedly running into a conflict with a German Shepherd, dodging an SUV and negotiating through a rail yard. She swam across the Missouri River and later took three tranquilizer darts before eventually getting corralled.
Mickey's Packing Plant employees christened the spirited cow Molly B and voted 10-1 to spare her from slaughter.
A less formal vote on Molly B's fate came out in her favor this weekend. New Dawn owner Eakins said after a heart-to-heart with her husband over whether they could afford to take another cow into their 50-animal operation, the couple decided to make it work. "We made a commitment to her," Eakins said.
Online:
New Dawn MT Sanctuary: http://newdawnmt.com/ The Ballad of Molly B: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/multimedia/mollyb/index.html