It was a few hard days’ nights and an Okotoks woman was working like a dog, but she finally found her daughter’s pet.
Barbara Van De Ponseele eyed and fetched her daughter Nicole’s dog Kramer some five days after the shih tzu had fled some volunteer walkers in Cochrane, where the canine and owner live.
She rescued the dog on Jan. 16 just before being spelled from an around the clock wait in front of a rescue trap overlooking a ravine.
“I told myself I would just take one more walk, I would walk the park and look down with binoculars,” Van De Ponseele said. “And I just happened to spot his red coat. He had been there five days.
“I sat on my butt, slid down there and he just stayed there — he was quite content someone had found him.”
She got some help getting back up the small ravine from a walker-by.
Kramer’s ordeal started on Jan. 11 when a friend of Nicole’s had volunteered to take the dog for a stroll.
“A friend had offered to take him to the dog park and Kramer bolted, he’s a rescue dog,” Van De Ponseele said. “We searched on the Friday and Saturday, and then my daughter had to fly out on Sunday for business and she was pretty sure the dog was gone because it was in the Mitford Park area and the coyotes had got him or something.”
Not quite.
Kramer was plastered over Cochrane area pet rescue Facebook pages and there was a sighting of him on Tuesday Jan. 15, while Nicole was still out of town.
That was when Barbara and Keith made a commitment to start looking in even more earnest.
They had some help from Angie James who Barbara called “a dog whisperer”.
“She recommended we purchase a live trap and then get something from Nicole’s house just so there was some scent there,” Barbara said. “So we put some food in there but it had to be monitored 24/7.”
The dog whisperer went beyond the call of duty, spending the nights by the trap waiting for Kramer to come home.
The team effort paid off.
After a visit to Southern Alberta Veterinary Emergency (SAVE) in Okotoks, Kramer is on the mend at the Van De Ponseeles’ Okotoks home awaiting Nicole’s return from her business trip.
“He was so dehydrated,” Van De Ponseele said on Jan. 17. “I give him a needle three times a day and he is looking better already. He had a bit of frostbite on his ears, and his feet — his pads — I had to put Polysporin on them and little leather shoes so he doesn’t lick his feet.
“But we can see an improvement since yesterday.”
Kramer will stay with the Van De Ponseeles until Nicole returns in early February.
“He’s like a cat — a dog with nine lives,” Barbara said.
Kramer will stay with the Van De Ponseeles until Nicole returns in early February.
“He’s like a cat — a dog with nine lives,” Barbara said.
