How A Little Lost Beagle Restored My Faith In Humanity

Lost in a blizzard, strangers searched for a dog they’d never met.

I marched through ankle-deep snow, panicked, and out of breath. The snow was falling fast, pelting me in the face like thousands of tiny cold needles, each one pricking my skin with its frosty bite.

We were expecting subzero, arctic temperatures the following few days, so I wasn’t going to let a little 12 inches of snow slow me down.

If I don’t find him now, he’ll never survive this.

I never wanted a dog. They’re too much work and I don’t have the time. So, when my boyfriend Tom rescued a skittish beagle over the summer, I played the role of the grumpy dad in a typical sitcom.

You know the type — Dad says no to a pet, spouse gets pet anyway. Dad bitches for months about the pet, but secretly becomes best friends with it. Before you know it, Dad’s icy cold heart is now replaced by the love of said hated pet.

That was me. I told Tom I was going to help minimally — that I didn’t think either of us had the time or the means for a dog at that time. So, I made it very clear that this Beagle was his responsibility. We don’t live together, so the dog could just live at Tom’s and I resumed life as normal.

But, within days, Tripper the Beagle wore me down and made me love him. He loved kids and treats and was abnormally scared of every noise. We concluded he was abused in his former home, so we took great care in being patient and gentle as we coaxed more and more of his personality out of his scared shell.

He was your average beagle in that his love for chasing birds and rabbits was unmatched. Watching him sneak up on unsuspecting house finches and squirrels provided quite the entertainment. And his excited tail wags, playing catch, and unlimited kisses became part of our everyday life.

There was no picturing life without Tripper the Beagle.

I answered my phone that Saturday morning, still groggy. The blizzard had just started and I was only on my second sip of my coffee.

“Tripper is gone, the gate must have not latched with these winds blowing.”

I didn’t think twice. Within 5 minutes, my snow pants were on and I was outside, looking for him in the area he ran toward. The snow was falling fast and it wasn’t airy, fluffy snow. It was heavy, wet snow — packing snow is what we call it. It’s the kind that makes the best snowmen and snowballs.

But, it’s not the easiest to run through wearing all the gear.

We had one sighting that morning, after two hours of him missing. Thanks to my Facebook post, we had a lead. I guess Facebook was still good for something after all.

We did everything wrong when we spotted him. We called for him, we walked toward him, and we tried to catch him. And, apparently, all the things you instinctively do to get your dog to come to you, don’t work when they are lost.

We didn’t know.

I made another post on the ‘Lost Pets in Your County’ Facebook Page. I didn’t expect anyone to go out and look for a stranger’s dog in a blizzard, but I was hoping people would share and at least keep a lookout.

Our community is small — there’s about 8,000 people total and there’s a lot that goes on here that I do not agree with. But, there’s one common thread that can bring any community together, no matter how divided they are.

People’s love for pets — especially dogs.

We spent 11 hours in a blizzard that day, looking for Tripper. We lost sight of him after that first lead and spent the rest of the day searching aimlessly. I even spent five of those hours on foot, hoping that trudging through the deepening snow, I could see tracks better outside of the car.

Never mind that I couldn’t feel my face.

We received one more tip that night, as it became dark. He ran into the woods and I was out there following his tracks. I followed them through an open field and back into the woods for about a half mile until I couldn’t anymore.

Where was he? The adrenaline I felt for finding this dog was something I’d never felt before. I was getting out of my car on busy roads, trekking through private property in 12 inches of snow, and entering spooky abandoned barns without a second thought.

I kept daydreaming of him running to me, with his tail wagging and ears flapping in the wind. But, I stayed laser-focused on the task at hand — my rescue mission.

Tom grew hopeless and I grew increasingly worried. The next day, we had zero sightings. With the wind chill, it got down to -15 degrees Fahrenheit and I tried to believe the people who were telling me that dogs were resilient.

While we had no sightings on day 2, the strangest thing was happening online. My post was being shared hundreds of times. My entire feed was full of pictures of our sweet beagle, Tripper.

Friends were sharing it. Strangers were sharing it. It felt like everyone in our small community knew about Tripper.

People were outside, in 2-degree temperatures, looking for a stranger’s dog. I saw people walking in neighborhoods with treats, slowly driving around town where we had last seen him, and messaging me on Facebook telling me they put food out for him.

I would stop by every person shoveling their drive, and they already knew about Tripper and wished me good luck in finding him, with promises to call me if they saw him.

By Monday (day 3), we had a fleet of volunteers. Some friends and a lot of perfectly kind, good, strangers were helping me look for our dog. Tripper the Beagle was becoming a local sensation. My server friends told me they overheard people talking about the Beagle that went missing during dinner.

Tuesday morning (the start of day 4), I was exhausted. I wasn’t sleeping through the night. I was waking up panicked and my only hope was that there was a sighting that morning.

That meant he was still alive.

Somehow in the arctic freeze that swept through, our little guy was still persevering, despite the odds.

But, he was scared and running. People kept telling me how fast he was like I hadn’t already said that in my updates on Facebook.

I was losing steam and patience. Conflicting information was coming in from all sorts of people, everyone claiming to be an expert in their own right.

Wading through hundreds of comments and messages was starting to become a full-time job in addition to actively searching for this damn, perfectly sweet, loveable, and totally stubborn dog.

And then, it happened. I received a call from a long-time friend who followed my instructions on my latest post, which was NOT to engage him.

Do not call his name. Do not chase him. Just call us. And that’s exactly what she did.

He was miles from home, on a back country road. She was following in her vehicle at a safe distance, with her hazard lights on. Tom and I were driving as fast as we could on the snow-covered roads, to meet her on the other side, hoping to cut off any traffic on the other side of the road.

And hoping we didn’t slide off the snow-covered roads into a ditch.

I immediately got out of the car and dropped to my belly with snacks in hand. Tripper stopped in his tracks staring at me, ears perked. My heart was pounding so loud I could hear it. This was my chance and I couldn’t blow it. He had wandered into Coyote country and I was sure he would never come home if he stayed this far from home.

I slowly army-crawled toward our scared dog. I held the bag of treats close to my mouth as I pretended to carelessly eat, crinkling the bag and dropping food as I moved at a snail’s pace. I made ridiculous eating noises and pretended to not notice Tripper as he slowly made his way toward me.

Apparently, when dogs are lost, their flight or fight mode is so high that it impedes their senses. They can’t smell their owners right away — this is why they will run from you. Even if you have a strong bond with your dog. That is why calling them and walking toward them is a big no-no when looking for your lost pet.

By getting on my belly, I was down on his level and not perceived as a threat.

Tripper was intrigued. Every few feet, he would stop and look around. His nose pointed upward toward the sky as he smelled the warm hotdogs and dog treats that I was haphazardly tossing around.

Slowly, he walked toward me. He was unsure, but he was hungry. It took about 15 minutes, but as soon as he was within grabbing distance, his tail started wagging furiously. Tom reached down from the car and scooped him up.

Immediate happy whimpers and kisses were embraced. The best feeling in the entire world was to see that our sweet Tripper was back where he belonged, my partner was full of happy tears, and I could finally breathe.

Somehow he was uninjured. Aside from being hungry and exhausted, and his paws being a bit dry and chapped, Tripper the adventurer snuggled up onto Tom’s bed, wrapping himself in blankets.

I spent the next several hours responding to all the kind comments flooding my Facebook post, only minutes after finding him. So many people were invested in his story and updates — friends from out of state telling me they were following the story of our lost dog, checking furiously throughout the day as I posted updates every time he was seen.

Strangers were still reaching out, days after we found Tripper, asking how he was.

I’m still in awe of how this town pooled together for us. I think often about the people who stopped me on the street on those blustery winter days, just to tell me they were looking for our dog.

Over the years, I’ve had a variety of opinions about this small town I grew up in, often feeling like an outsider. But those harrowing three days of searching for a lost little beagle have shifted my perspective.

It reminded me that, at the end of the day, people are inherently kind and eager to lend a hand. I witnessed people from all walks of life uniting over a common cause, sparked by the universal bond we share with man’s best friend. This experience showed me a different, more compassionate side of the town I thought I knew.

And the next time someone’s dog goes missing, I will be out looking for them with the same amount of love and dedication I was shown on the coldest days of the year.

All thanks to a curious little Beagle who decided that a blizzard would be the perfect time to have an adventure.