By Micheal Foley
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Mazi, a two-year-old female boxer, spent more than a week outdoors in frigid winter air without food or water.
Owners Shaina Johannsen and Charlie Beer stopped by the Hillcrest Animal Hospital on Thursday, Feb. 10, to spend some time with Mazi. They were able to take her home the following day.
Thanks to the help of family, friends, neighbors, concerned community members and an anonymous donor, a Burkhardt couple has been reunited with their 2-year-old boxer dog named Mazi.
Mazi ran away from the couple's home the evening of Monday, Jan. 31. Owners Shaina Johannsen and Charlie Beer immediately started a search. Johannsen was babysitting at the time and couldn't leave, so she called Beer who left work in Bloomington, MN, to start the search.
On his way home, Beer called his parents. Beer's father, who was out snowmobiling at the time called his brother and the search was on. Beer's mother and brother were quickly enlisted, as well as a few neighbors.
One of the searchers spotted Mazi's tracks leading to County Road A, but falling snow made further tracking impossible that night.
"We did as much as we could that night," Beer said. "We searched until about 10:30 that night and didn't find any more traces."
Beer took off of work the next day to dedicate his time to finding Mazi.
"I went door-to-door in the neighborhood to ask if anybody had seen her," Beer said. "On that day we put signs up on the stop signs and took signs to some of the local businesses. I called the vets and the humane society and filed a missing dog report with them."
One of the people they contacted was Brenda Daubenspeck. Also a boxer owner, Daubenspeck took the search to the Internet. She posted pictures of Mazi on every missing animal website and local forum she could find, including Craigslist and the Hudson Patch Facebook page. Beer also regularly monitored Craigslist in case anyone was trying to sell the dog.
"By the third day I was starting to think she was stolen," Beer said. "The snow was so deep around here that she didn't have that many places to go."
Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping and Johannsen was getting worried.
"She's our life, like our child," Johannsen said. "Every day I would break down. Every day that went by you just lose that much more hope. It didn't feel right to do anything without her. You don't realize how much of your life involves a dog until it's not there anymore."
Online forums advised the couple to have strong-smelling food outside along with clothes they had worn in case Mazi picked up the scent and wandered back home.
At about 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb 8, the couple got word from Pam Hofer, who lived about a half mile away, heard a dog crying in the woods earlier that day. When Hofer ventured into the woods to check, the animal stopped making noise.
At about 5:30, when Hofer's neighbor Michelle Schoeder heard the story, she called her daughter Emily Pelton and told her to take the family's golden retriever Bennie into the woods to look for a whimpering dog—but Emily and Bennie didn't find the dog.
After another failed attempt an hour later, the search party had grown. Michelle's husband Steve, and their neighbor Nancy Martel joined Pam and Emily for another search. This time they looked under trees and bushes and found Mazi curled up in an icy bed she had made for herself.
Mazi wasn't receptive to Steve handling her, so Emily put her coat over the dog and laid down next to her to warm her with her body heat while Pam called the owners.
After the discovery, it became obvious that Mazi was in desperate need of medical care. She had painful sores on her hind legs, broken teeth and, most noticeably, she had lost quite a bit of weight.
"She lost 11 pounds, and she only weighed 55 to begin with," Beer said. "She was very dehydrated and very hungry."
The couple brought her to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Oakdale, MN, where Dr. Jeff Bush cared for the ailing pooch.
"They said she looked pretty good given the situation; they started her immediately on fluids and tried to get some food in her," Beer said. "They were really worried about the sores on her back legs. They thought it might have been frostbite. After checking her out they said it wasn't frostbite, but a sore, like a bed sore, from laying on the ice, or she got hit by something."
In addition, Mazi had two broken teeth that were embedded in her gums.
When checking out of the Animal Emergency Clinic, the couple was informed that $500 of their vet bill was paid for by an anonymous donor. Mazi spent the next day and night at the couple's local vet Hillcrest Animal Hospital in Hudson under the care of Dr. Chris Cole.
Charlie and Shaina brought Mazi home on Friday, Feb. 11, a week and a half after she ran away.
"We just really want to stress how thankful we are for everybody who supported us through this and helped with the search," Johannsen said. "We are so thankful for what Pam, Michelle, Steve, Emily, and Nancy did for us. Also, we are so appreciative of the $500 donation. There are some great people out there."
Source: http://hudson-wi.patch.com/articles/burkhardt-couple-reunited-with-lost-dog-after-eight-day-search
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