Michael was an anxious dog when he first arrived at Animal Allies. 

“He was very skittish, very scared, very frightened of people, very frightened of pretty much any and all situations. He was a very, very scared dog,” said Animal Allies employee Kathryn Sawyer. “He eventually warmed up to a few staff members, but that was it. Everybody else he would actively try to run away from because he was afraid.”

On the Loose

Eventually, there was some hope as he was placed in a foster-to-adopt home with people who had fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, Michael was able to get out accidentally. Broken-hearted, the foster family notified Animal Allies and put a post on the Missing Pets in the Northland Facebook page. 

“He went missing, and usually if an animal gets out, there’s some of us like go around and look for them because that’s what we should do,” said Kathryn’s daughter Jess who also works at Animal Allies. “We want them back safely, and so then we for a while didn’t know where he was. It tore us all up inside because we were really worried about him.”

Despite many on-foot searches, Michael was hard to find. Then, Shelley Johnson spotted him near Central High School. At first, Shelley thought it was the neighbor’s dog. She then found the post on Facebook and made others aware of his whereabouts. 

Search Efforts

“We started going out looking for him. We went and searched trails so that we could try to pinpoint where he had been and what places he was visiting,” explained Shelley. 

Unable to catch Michael by hand even if someone did find him and get close, Shelley put in an application to the Retrievers for help. The nonprofit works tirelessly to capture lost dogs, including those that need to be caught with a live trap. The Retrievers called the next day, came up, and helped set up the trap that night. President and CEO Jennifer Cadigan lives in the area and monitored the trap remotely. 

After a few times of getting Michael in the trap without it being armed, he was finally caught. 

“I got up at 4 in the morning. I got dressed just in anticipation. Maybe he’ll show up again, and 6:18 in the morning, she [Jennifer] calls me and her exact words were, ‘He’s in the trap. Go, go, go, go, go.’ I live only about a block from there. So I got up there, and he was beautiful and calm and got some chicken. We had a long conversation,” said Shelley.

Back to Safety

A month after he first went missing, Kathryn and Jess brought Michael back to the safety of Animal Allies. 

“Between a phenomenal neighborhood of people that just cared so much for this dog that they didn’t even know, a bunch of animal allies staff that’s been monitoring the missing pets posts and the other ones and doing foot searches for him and Shelly’s unbelievable neighborhood. We were able to successfully get this guy back,” said Kathryn.

This Friday, Michael was reunited with Shelley under happier circumstances. She visited him at Animal Allies and brought him chicken. 

Shelley, Kathryn, and Jess all say Michael has changed from the experience and is a whole new dog. 

“He’s been in the main office area with all the commotion and people going in and out of there. He’s been in our office area,” said Kathryn. “Whereas before you couldn’t get him to go beyond his little hallway at all. So it’s been a lot of good positive changes for him. I think when he got back here, he was like, ‘Oh my God, this place is awesome’.”

Michael is recovering from a wound on his stomach that occurred while lost, but he is otherwise happy and healthy. 

Friends for Life

The group effort to save Michael has brought total strangers together. 

“I’ve made new friends. I met my neighbors in lots of conversations. So many people were out there looking for him. I had spotted him several times, and it all came together,” said Shelley. These two [Kathryn and Jess], myself and Jennifer, with the help of the community where I live. It was a positive, rewarding, beautiful experience.”  

The trio says this successful rescue could not have been done without the help of Jennifer and the live trap from the Retrievers. Figuring out where to place the trap was made possible through various community members reporting sightings. 

“It’s very heartwarming to know that people care, you know, because sometimes, especially where we work, we see some stuff that makes it hard, you know, and you’re like, it just makes it hard. So it’s nice to see that people care and that they’re willing to come together and make the world a good place,” said Jess.

Michael will eventually be placed back on the Animal Allies website for adoption. For now, he can often be found either on his favorite bench sunbathing or walking around and greeting everyone.