Imagine being lost on a mountaintop at 14,000 feet for 6 weeks. Survival would be unlikely.
But a dog named Chloe did just that on a 14er in Colorado back in 2017.
Chloe’s owner Larry Osborne said she took off on a routine walk near their home in Mount Bross one day. He looked everywhere for her and spent weeks trying to track her down. But after a month, he began to take down her “Missing” posters.
“I was not optimistic at all,” Osborne told his local CBS station.
However, five weeks after Chloe went missing, a hiker reported hearing a faint bark while scaling the nearby mountainside.
When Trinity Smith saw the hiker’s online post warning others that a dog might be stuck on the mountain, she couldn’t get it out of her head.
“I had no sleep the past two nights, because all I could think about was a poor dog stuck in harsh conditions, at 14,000 feet,” Smith said.
While some hikers who saw the post said it was likely just a coyote, Smith and her friend Sean Nichols took to the mountain to see if there was, indeed, a dog in need. They searched for two days, calling out to the pup, hoping it would bark back.
“I started to give up, thinking she hadn’t made it through the night. Then (I heard) that little bark, and the adrenaline started going again,” Smith said.
They knew it was a dog, so they climbed in the direction of the barking.
“I saw a little head pop up,” Nichols said.
Chloe’s story is incredible not only because she was found by such caring strangers who had a hunch that they might be able to help, but also because it turns out the poor pup had been stuck on a ledge.
There were loose rocks and steep terrain on either side — she couldn’t get down.
“I reached up and got her, and she got on my chest,” Nichols said. “We just slid down the rocks. She was so light, I could hold her with one arm.”
Poor Chloe was so light because she was starving.
When she ran away she weighed 90 pounds. She weighed just 26 when she was rescued.
It’s amazing that she survived at all under those conditions.
Nichols and Smith fed Chloe, gave her water, and brought her to a local convenience store for more supplies. It was there that an employee, Kim Clement, recognized the pup from her posters and immediately called Osbourne.
Osbourne couldn’t believe that after all those weeks his dog was still alive, much less what she had been through. He loved her so much that he had even gone searching for her remains.
Their reunion was full of emotion.
“I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it was (Chloe),” Osborne said.
Chloe immediately started wagging her tail when she saw her beloved owner.
And while the brave canine had survived nearly 6 weeks on the mountain, it’s likely that she was discovered just in time. If she hadn’t starved, she might have frozen to death. Less than 72 hours after her barking was reported, the mountainside she was stuck on was blanketed in snow.
“With everything going on in the world, there are still good people out there,” Osborne said of Chloe’s rescuers.
His faith in humanity was restored.
Chloe was 13 years old when she went missing. Sadly, she passed away the following year in 2018.
Smith posted a longer version of the rescue story on her Facebook page and reported that she got to spend lots of time with the dog she helped rescue in the months following.
Be sure to scroll down to see Smith’s Facebook tribute and to hear more about Chloe’s remarkable rescue.
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Source: CBS News – Denver, Trinity Smith via Facebook, 9News Denver
(h/t Reshareworthy)
