After nearly two months missing in Boise Foothills, lost dog captured 18 miles away
After two months spent in the Boise Foothills, a missing dog was found 18 miles away from where he first escaped, to the relief of his owner and dozens of Idahoans on social media who had aided in efforts to find him.
Roger, a 2-year-old collie mix, went missing on Mother’s Day weekend. The skittish dog had been rescued by his owner, Ava Anderson, just six months earlier. Anderson, who lives in Salt Lake City, was in town visiting family when Roger escaped.
The missing pup’s plight amassed a following on social media, with hundreds of people celebrating his rescue along with Anderson and Ladies and the Trap, a small local rescue group that ultimately captured Roger 53 days after he first began running.
Dog missing in Boise Foothills evaded capture despite sightings
Since she’d adopted him, Roger was incredibly attached to Anderson. Because of Roger’s severe separation anxiety, he was crated when he was alone so he wouldn’t hurt himself, Anderson said in an interview.
Anderson and her partner went out to lunch on May 8, leaving Roger with Anderson’s mother. The 50-pound dog panicked and escaped through an open backyard gate in the Sunset neighborhood. Scared and in unfamiliar territory, he started to run. Anderson’s mother was close behind, trying to steer the dog away from busy streets and into the neighboring Foothills.
“He went over a hill and then we didn’t see him for the rest of the day,” Anderson said.
Though worried, at first, Anderson said she was optimistic. Surely Roger would be home soon. She decided to stay in Boise with her parents until he was found. Friends and family hiked and drove through the area looking for the sandy brown dog. Anderson also posted photos on Facebook, asking neighbors to keep an eye out and call her if they spotted Roger.
Anderson’s mother reached out to Ladies and the Trap, a donation-funded, volunteer-run group that focuses on rescuing lost dogs. Jamie Lough, who co-founded Ladies and the Trap with Debbie Johnson and Nicole Jenkins, said people were already tagging the group in posts about Roger. Ladies and the Trap emphasizes luring lost dogs —coaxing them with food and a calm demeanor — instead of calling out to or chasing already scared animals. They were a perfect fit for finding Roger.
They helped make posters and quickly spread the word on social media: If you see Roger, don’t chase him. Ladies and the Trap also set out traps and left food lures and items of clothing with Anderson’s scent on them in the hopes of drawing Roger in. But the dog kept running. Roger’s fear of strangers, and men in particular, was proving to be a bigger challenge than expected.
“Everyone who saw him said that he was just at full speed,” Anderson said.
At one point, he was seen near the Shakespeare Festival grounds in Southeast Boise, about 20 miles from where he went missing. Later, he was seen near the Greenbelt and in the Seaman’s Gulch area near the Ada County Landfill.
“Getting him to slow down was our biggest thing,” Johnson said. “We’d get a sighting and he was long gone by the time we got there. He was on the move constantly.”
Posts about Roger were shared far and wide on Facebook. Commenters reported possible sightings, and concerned neighbors would check in on his whereabouts when they hadn’t seen an update in a few days.
For Anderson, it was comforting to have the support of a community, many of whom were hiking in the Hillside to Hollow Reserve where Roger had first fled, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She said some people would share their own lost dog stories of survival, giving her hope that Roger would return home safe.
But there were also cruel comments — from people who blamed Anderson or questioned her fitness as a dog owner to scammers who taunted her, telling her they had Roger and wouldn’t return him. Others raised Anderson’s own worst fears: Could her dog survive in the Foothills, with its wildlife, heat and lack of food and water? Had he been hit by a car or otherwise injured?
“Every night I couldn’t sleep because I was just thinking about him being out there,” she said.
Roger captured in Kuna after 53 days alone
At first, Roger sightings were fairly frequent. But as June dragged on, they started to fade. On June 28, after 27 days with no word on Roger, Anderson decided to return to Salt Lake City. By then she was certain Roger hadn’t survived. She started packing up his things to store in her basement.
One week later, Anderson received one last tip about Roger. A woman in Kuna had seen a dog matching his description and had been leaving food out for him. She sent a photo, but Anderson couldn’t be sure it was Roger.
“It looked just like him but the collar was the wrong color,” she said. “It was white and he’d had a denim collar.”
She texted Ladies and the Trap anyway. Even if this dog wasn’t Roger, they could hopefully reunite the stray pup with its owner. Lough, who lives just a few minutes from the woman who contacted Anderson, set up a trap in the area around 10 p.m. June 30. She set up a camera, which alerts the ladies’ cell phones when it detects activity.
“All of us were skeptical because no one had seen him in Kuna — so far from over in Seaman’s Gulch where the last (sightings) were,” Lough said.
Within an hour, Lough received a phone call from Johnson. There was a dog in the trap.
Lough went to retrieve the trap, putting the captured dog in the back of her car. She didn’t want to get Anderson’s hopes up if this wasn’t Roger, but she couldn’t help it — the dog looked just like him. When she got the dog back to her home, she was finally able to let him free from the trap and look at the tags on his collar.
It was Roger.
“It was just an amazing moment to be able to get her on FaceTime and say, ‘It was your dog out here. It really was,’ ” Lough said.
All three of the rescuers still tear up talking about that moment. In Salt Lake City, Anderson was just as emotional.
“I was just sobbing, like I was so happy,” Anderson said. “Me and my partner were at home and we were just dancing and jumping.”
Anderson wanted to head to Boise right away, but by then it was midnight. Her partner convinced her to wait until morning, but Anderson could hardly sleep. The next day, she woke up at 5 a.m. ready to reunite with Roger.
Missing dog, owner reunited after weeks apart
Johnson transported Roger to Burley, meeting Anderson halfway. Everyone was excited for an emotional reunion, but Roger, still exhausted and anxious from his ordeal, stayed calm.
“I think Roger’s the most unemotional dog I’ve ever met,” Johnson said, laughing. “Even when he saw Ava he was like, ‘Oh. It’s my mom.’ ”
Roger greeted Anderson in his own way — by promptly plopping down in her lap.
“He just came over to sniff me, and then he sat in my lap and rolled over and gave me his belly, so I knew that he remembered it was me,” Anderson said. “No one else can touch him. And I would try to walk away and he would be like, ‘No, you’re not leaving.’ ”
Seeing Roger again felt surreal, Anderson said. The whole drive home, she kept looking in the backseat to make sure he was still there.
Roger’s next stop was the vet. Miraculously, Anderson said, he weighed exactly the same as he had when he’d gone missing. He had two ticks on him and a piece of cheatgrass in an ear, but was otherwise in excellent health.
A week after coming home, Roger is still settling back in. Anderson said his separation anxiety and skittishness has regressed to where it was when she first adopted him, and she knows it will take months of hard work to help him progress. For now, she’s just enjoying every moment they have together.
“We’re just going to be training and hanging out with him and just enjoying life, because it is so good and I’m so lucky,” she said. “It’s unreal.”
The women of Ladies and the Trap were equally amazed by Roger’s journey. Their retelling of his saga on Facebook earned dozens of joyous comments and more than 150 shares.
“I think we still didn’t believe it,” Jenkins said. “Even days after, it’s still hard to believe that that’s Roger and he’s home.”
