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Survival of lost dog found caught in fence called 'pretty amazing' by ownerBy Joel Stottrup It will likely never be known how long the 4-year-old golden-brown cocker spaniel named Dusty was hung up in the woven wire fence along the north side of Green Lake last month. But it was for at least three days and possibly more before Dusty was found and taken to a vet clinic, according to veterinarian Joel Ihnen at Princeton Veterinary Clinic. Now the dog runs around seemingly fine, though Dusty is minus one leg. The dog is owned by the Chip and Wendy Fraser family, which with daughters Bryony, 14, and Cassy, 7, live on the northeast side of Green Lake about seven miles east of Princeton. One of the family members let Dusty outside on April 6 and he wasn't seen until April 19 when Jeff and Lynda Hammer were out for a walk. The Hammers live on 27 acres on the north side of Green Lake about three-quarters of a mile as the crow flies from the Fraser home. They took a route that day that was different from their normal walk and ended up along a fence they have for their cows. It was somewhere between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. when Jeff walked back to the north part of his property and spotted something brown hanging suspended from the top part of the fence. It was Dusty, with his right rear paw caught in the fence and the rest of his body hanging upside down. Long before that point, the Frasers had notified various people that their dog was missing, including the staff at Princeton Veterinary Clinic. When Jeff found Dusty he let him loose and then walked back to where Lynda was and told her about it. They went back to retrieve Dusty to bring him to Princeton Veterinary Clinic. By the time the Hammers walked back, the dog had started to limp in the direction of the Fraser home. So when the Hammers called the clinic to tell them they were bringing in the dog for treatment, and they learned Fraser was missing a cocker spaniel, the Hammers figured it was the Frasers' dog, Lynda said this week. The Hammers called the Frasers to report their finding but the Frasers weren't home so the Hammers left a message. The dog was so thirsty when they found him, Lynda said, that he drank about a quart of water. She figured the dog couldn't have been hung up in the fence from April 6 to the 19th or it wouldn't have lived. When the Frasers saw Dusty again, he had lost a lot of weight and in Chip's words, looked like "skin and bones." Once the Frasers learned their dog was at the vet clinic, they checked it out and took the clinic's advice that if they wanted to keep the dog, the injured back right leg would have to be amputated just above the knee. The lower part of the leg was being held only by the tibia (the lower leg bone) and a quarter-inch strip of skin, said veterinarian Ihnen. The blood supply had been cut off to the lower portion and it would have infected the rest of the dog's body if it remained, he explained. Ihnen noted that the fence had chewed up part of the leg but that it also looked like the dog had chewed at the leg's upper part. The Frasers had notified people not only at the vet clinic that their dog was missing, but also at West Side Corner Store near Green Lake, two print publications and WQPM Radio and neighbors. After the 14th or 15th of April without finding Dusty, Chip said, his family "kind of gave up." The family had driven around the lake searching and neighborhood people had been keeping watch. When Dusty did come home April 21 from the clinic, Chip gave a lot of credit to the clinic for helping Dusty recuperate. Now some are talking about Dusty's survival, including the Frasers, who also have another dog and four horses. Chip said it is "kind of a mystery" where Dusty was for 13 days and said that Dusty being alive is "pretty amazing." Veterinarian Ihnen said there are usually two ways that dogs come out when getting caught in a fence. One is when they are with someone hunting and the hunter quickly frees the dog. The other is when the dog is not found right away and when it is, it is dead. "I'm just amazed he didn't die," Ihnen said, referring to the dog hanging upside down and the possibility of dehydration. Chip said the dog could have possibly eaten snow for moisture and that some of the recent rains might have helped. "I would say it's a miracle that the dog lived," said Lynda Hammer. Princeton Union-Eagle |