Some bonds don’t end, not even when everything else does.
For more than two months, a small Jack Russell Terrier named Finney refused to leave the one person who mattered most to her, staying by his side through cold nights, hunger, and the vast silence of the Colorado mountains.
Finney and her owner, 71 year old Rich Moore of Pagosa Springs, set out together on August 19 to summit Blackhead Peak in the San Juan Mountains.
It should have been just another hike. Instead, the pair vanished, and search crews spent nearly 2,000 hours combing the wilderness looking for them, with no success.
Weeks turned into months, and hope for the two of them began to fade for everyone except, it seems, for Finney herself.
On October 30, a local hunter finally found them. Moore had passed away in the mountains, but there beside him, still waiting, still watching over him, was Finney, alive.
“Loyalty and the testament to the fact that this dog stayed with this person that long is just a beautiful story that is on the other side of a very sad tragedy,” said Delinda VanneBrightyn of Taos Search and Rescue, one of the volunteer teams who had searched for the pair from the very beginning.
What Finney endured to stay by his side is almost impossible to imagine.
Rescuers believe she survived by drinking from a nearby stream and hunting small animals to stay alive, doing whatever it took to keep going, not to save herself, but simply to remain where she was needed.
When she and Moore first began their hike, Finney weighed 12 pounds. By the time she was found, she had lost half her body weight, down to just 6 pounds, a quiet, physical record of exactly how long she had chosen to stay.
Finney is now safely home, reunited with her family and recovering after treatment at a local veterinary hospital.
“In the midst of a terrible human tragedy, we are also grateful that they still have this heroic dog that was part of Rich’s life with them,” VanneBrightyn said.
Somewhere on that mountain, a small dog made a choice that most humans would struggle to make, to stay, no matter the cost, simply because that’s what loyalty looks like when it’s real.
Source:
businessinsider – “A loyal dog was found alive near her owner’s body, months after they went missing near a mountain”