Dog, owner reunited after 348 days

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    BISMARK, Mo. (Daily Journal) — If only dogs could talk.

An autumn miracle occurred Nov. 4 when a woman was finally reunited with her Leadwood-impounded dog, Duke, who had gone missing from her 80-acre farm about three miles west of Bismarck on November 22, 2019.

Patty Delashmit said she never imagined, when she let out her 5-year-old dog around 7 o’clock that night, that she wouldn’t see him again for almost a year and he’d be found almost 10 miles away, as the crow flies, around Leadwood City Park.

“Whenever I let him out, I would always give him a little bit, then call him back in,” she said. “This time, I called out for him but there was no sign of him. And with deer season on at the time, when he didn’t come back the next day, I worried he was shot.”

Delashmit didn’t know what to do. Duke had never disappeared like that before. Neither had any of her other four dogs — her daughter’s Jack Russell terrier that she looked after while her daughter was at school, nor her Yorkie dog, not Duke’s mom Stinky, nor Delashmit’s fourth dog, Ogie.

Those last two dogs were strays that had happened onto Delashmit’s farm back in 2013, the day after a tragic family milestone.

“We had just had Grandma’s funeral, and when (Stinky and Ogie) showed up the next day, I took it as a sign. I felt they were just supposed to be here,” she said.

Delashmit suspected they were drop-offs. Stinky — so named because, yes, Delashmit confirmed, she arrived a little scented — was very friendly. And apparently pregnant. The other, smaller dog, was a bit more demur.

“At first, we didn’t see the other dog, we just saw Stinky,” Delashmit said. “When I saw him peeking around the side of the house, I said, ‘Oh gee, is that another dog?’ and the name stuck. Ogie.”

It was 2014 when Stinky gave birth to four puppies, and while three were given away, Duke was kept. N

ow, with a whole night having passed, Delashmit thought about the fact that, in five years, Duke had never strayed from the farm like this.

“When he wasn’t back the next day, me and my daughter drove around, yelling for him and looking for him,” she said. “We put the word out and people would tell us when they thought they saw him, but nothing turned up. I looked for a very long time, but thought in my heart, he was still alive. Someone might have taken him in, I just felt like he was still alive.”

Almost 11 months passed since Delashmit last saw Duke. But he’d been seen by someone else.

Duke had been found, wandering around the city park in Leadwood on Oct. 17. Officer Brendon Corbett transferred Duke to the Leadwood Pound, where he stayed for just over two weeks before Delashmit’s daughter, Chenoah Edburg, saw a photo on the Farmington Rescue Friends (FRF) Facebook page that looked a lot like her mom’s missing pet.

“She said, ‘Mom, I think this is your dog,’” Delashmit said, “and I couldn’t believe it. That was my dog. They found Duke.”

After getting in touch with FRF’s Sydney Holst and proving her ownership, she called Leadwood Police Chief Greg Northrup, who sent an escort to the pound so Delashmit and her mom, Teresa Robbins, could finally identify and pick up Duke on Nov. 4. Time was of the essence, since he was scheduled for the gallows that Friday.

“My mom was taking me over there to get him, and I told her, what if it’s not my dog, how can I look at another dog that’s about to be euthanized and not take him?” Delashmit said.

But it was Duke alright, and he looked pretty healthy, he still had his collar on, still had the same sweet wag and puppy smile when he saw his owner for the first time in almost a year.

“As soon as I saw him I just started bawling, I couldn’t believe it. I can’t imagine how he got there. I look at him and ask him, ‘I missed you so much, where have you been, where all did you go?’” she said. “Once I got myself together, I told them, I’ve heard of stories like this, but I never thought it would happen to me.”

Of course, reuniting with her was one thing. On the way home, Delashmit and Robbins wondered if Duke would remember the farm, and more importantly, how he would be with the other dogs, since he’d been on his own for so long.

“We let his mom Stinky out first while we had him on a leash,” Delashmit said, “and his mom just wagged and wagged, and he wagged, and they sniffed— they hadn’t forgotten each other.”

Same for the other three dogs, Delashmit said, they all just wagged, sniffed, and wanted to play around the yard together.

Weeks have passed since the big reunion, and Delashmit said while some things are the same, a few things have changed.

“He’s doing great, although now when he’s out and I’m not out there with him, I have him on a chain so he’ll never leave,” she said. “I just don’t want to take that chance.”

Delashmit also hopes her story will provide encouragement to more pet owners whose “fur kids” have gone missing.

“Every time I see the missing pets posts, I share them, because we would never have found Duke if it wasn’t for that,” she said. “I’ve shared local people’s posts before, but after this, it’s made me see the need to post missing-pet posts from further out, because we’d have never known Duke made it so far from the house. That inspired me to keep sharing them.”

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