After 34 days on the loose in Yellowstone National Park, Luna the Jack Russell Terrier is on her way home.
Katie Boucher, president of Norris Arc Training and Recovery Center, led the search for the 10-year-old dog, which was spotted dozens of times throughout the area but proved difficult to catch.
Boucher’s team had only days left before they would have to suspend the search for the winter. Around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Boucher told Cowboy State Daily via text message that the search had ended with the news so many had been waiting on.
“We got her!” Boucher said.
‘In The Doghouse Waiting’
Luna escaped Sept. 10 while vacationing with her family in the Canyon Village area of Yellowstone.
The family had left her in their rented cabin for an outing to Norris Geyser Basin, and after a mishap with the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, housekeeping staff entered the room and Luna slipped out.
Boucher took the lead on the search after Luna’s family spent the first week looking for her on their own and then asked for help.
Though Luna was frequently seen, she was hard to catch.
Boucher said that’s because she lived as a feral street dog for the first year of her life, before a rescue picked her up and her family adopted her. When she escaped, she slipped into fight or flight, and the survival skills from those early years came back as second nature.
"She has street skills,” Boucher previously told Cowboy State Daily. “She knows how to survive.”
Boucher’s permits to search in the park were set to expire Monday, with the winter shutdown coming at the end of the month.
Given how far Luna had made it, Boucher said she wouldn’t put it past the tiny terrier to befriend some woodland creatures and survive the winter on her own.
She said she would have come back in the spring, but now she won't have to.
Boucher pinned down the area where she knew Luna was sleeping each night and set a Missy trap stocked with shelter and items carrying familiar scents.
The humane trap stays open until someone watching remotely closes it once the dog walks inside.
That trap is where Luna was found Wednesday morning, but Boucher said she didn’t use it in the way she was expecting.
“We put a small doghouse in there for shelter during the storm,” Boucher said. “This morning, when we went to reset it and resume our trapping efforts, she was in the doghouse waiting for us.”
10 Pounds Lighter
Luna’s owners had returned to the area from California previously after Boucher had asked them to try some intensive scent trail tactics.
Luna’s owners were the first to reach the trap and find her inside, and Boucher arrived soon after to join them.
“The feeling never gets old,” Boucher said. “Pure joy.”
Cowboy State Daily's attempts to reach the others were unsuccessful.
They took Luna straight to a vet, where she was still being treated as of Wednesday afternoon. Boucher said that Luna, who was 18 pounds when she escaped, had lost about 10 pounds.
Boucher said she was still waiting to hear from the vet about the extent of Luna’s condition and wasn’t sure yet whether the dog would be kept overnight.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
