HUSON — The story of Jack the dog and his rescue has gone far beyond the Mineral County woods where he was found.
He is now getting lots of love while he recovers at a Huson animal rescue, but his journey there was months in the making.
“It’s what Jack needs and I can’t thank the community enough for getting him to rescue,” said Kim Williams, who runs Pronking Pastures, the rescue and sanctuary caring for Jack.
Jack was first spotted near Alberton in November in horrible condition.
Concerned citizens who saw him posted in community Facebook pages and many jumped at the chance to help Jack.
A rescue team was then formed between community volunteers and Pronking Pastures.
Watch to learn more about Jack's journey:
“I mean, we can't be everywhere and Jack was in a big area, so we really relied on our community members to spot him,” Williams said. “We have a great individual that we work with in Mineral County named Bessie, who was able to set her trap up.”
Williams and Bessie Spangler have trapped dogs in-need before, but Jack eluded them for months. With winter setting in, they worried Jack had passed.
“I hiked around the area that he was last seen in November for about a week, took a few hours a day and searched up and down the river, off the interstate, just all over the place,” Spangler said. “Didn't have any more sightings for quite a while and so we just kind of lost hope.”
Then, Jack resurfaced at the end of January. After a few days of trying to trap him, the rescue team succeeded and got Jack to the emergency vet. He is extremely emaciated, but Jack is recovering well at Pronking Pastures, under careful supervision for veterinarians.
“I'll be honest, it took my breath away when I first saw him. I was sick to my stomach because we've been trapping dogs for years and I've never had a dog that's looked like that before,” Williams said. “It takes a while for the body to come back online once it's been depleted of food for that long.”
Pronking pastures worked with law enforcement and animal care organizations to learn more about Jack’s backstory. In the fall, he was re-homed via Facebook to someone in the Huson-area, then abandoned. Williams said it is a reminder of the importance of doing due diligence before re-homing pets.
“If you do have to re-home your animal, make sure you're doing extensive interviews, making sure you're going to the house, even seeing where your animal's going to be living,” Williams said.
Now, the search is underway to find Jack a medical foster and his forever home, somewhere with lots of love but no other dogs or cats.
“This boy is about four or five years old and he's had quite a few homes and it's really been no fault of his own, because he's just been a fabulous boy,” Williams said. “I just feel that we've let him down and so it's now our job to do right by him. So, I'm excited that we get to have that privilege.”
While Jack is recovering, all those who helped with his rescue are still by his side. Spangler never saw Jack in all the time she spent searching for him. Last week, she finally met him.
“It was very emotional just seeing how big of a fighter he is and how resilient he is,” Spangler said. “I live in Superior and I've had community members stop me on the street and give donations for him, you know, stop by my office and drop off a donation and ‘how's Jack?’”
Williams said Jack’s rescue has been community-driven, from those who searched for him for hours to those dropping off supplies or stopping by give him pets to those who donated money to cover his veterinary costs. Jack greets all of his challenges with tail-wagging.
“He's a dog that thrives on people connection and so for him to have a whole community rallying for him, I just feel like, out of all dogs, he's the dog to be that mascot,” she said.
