FARGO – Nadia the missing Shiba Inu has been found and Friday the 13th of February is owner Delrae Amann’s new lucky day.
After getting loose a month earlier, a cold, hungry and haggard Nadia showed up Friday morning outside the kennel of Yuppy Puppy Dog Hotel, 305 70th Ave. S., Moorhead.
Attendants there recognized Nadia from her Facebook page, “Bring Nadia Home,” and the dog’s photographs on posters and fliers, and succeeded in luring her to warmth and safety.
“Nadia is home, and we couldn’t be happier,” Amann said Saturday, after being reunited Friday morning with her dog. “It’s just incredible how this community could come together for a little dog. It’s heartwarming.”
The dog, a Japanese breed with a thick coat of fur, weighed 11 pounds – three pounds lighter than before she was lost – and was in dire need of a shampoo, but otherwise appeared to be doing well, considering her prolonged exposure to frigid weather, Amann said.
“She’s tiny,” she said. “She’s just so, so thin. What she’s been living on, we don’t know.”
Earlier Nadia had run away from her original owner, and suffered a broken foreleg, a fracture that was treated and had healed before she bolted Jan. 16 from the Amanns’ south Fargo home.
A veterinarian who examined Nadia was surprised at how well she had endured the ordeal. “She’s got to be tough,” Amann said.
Nadia is afraid of people, and runs away when approached by strangers, making her recovery more difficult.
Volunteers mounted a grid search and spread the word via social media.
Based on multiple sightings and a couple of trail camera photographs, the 5-year-old dog apparently roved extensively in south Fargo and south Moorhead, frequently crossing the frozen Red River, Amman said.
“She was able to move great distances,” she said. “She traveled a lot. She was constantly on the move.”
Apparently she had been drawn to Yuppy Puppy by the other dogs –presumably also lured by the scent of food – and was ready at that point to surrender, she said.
Once notified that a dog resembling Nadia had turned up, a volunteer in the search, SueAnn Horner, who had provided a foster home for the dog before she was adopted by Amman, verified the dog was indeed Nadia.
Nadia recognized Horner, and jumped right into her lap.
Now safely home, Nadia is on a diet to gradually restore her weight. She went to her bed and promptly took a nap, and continued resting Saturday.
“She’s sleeping as we speak,” Amann said.
The Amanns are ensuring that their gates are more secure and are shopping for tracking collars for both of their dogs.
“Beyond a doubt, they’re both getting GPS devices on their collars,” Amann said.
The night before Nadia was found, the temperature plunged well below zero. Saturday’s high didn’t climb above zero.
“I don’t know with this brutal cold today how much longer she would have lasted,” Amann said.
The community’s avid response to the pleas to bring Nadia home was amazing, Horner said, but she doesn’t want people to forget that another local dog remains missing.
Frankie, a West Fargo Pomeranian, has been missing since early this month. A Facebook page, “Finding Frankie,” is dedicated to the dog’s return.
