LAKE CRESCENT — Katie, a sheltie who was lost for more than three weeks, is now home safe.
She was brought home Friday “after 25 days in the wilderness,” thin, but apparently healthy, said John Fabian, 71.
“I’m kind of an old fellow, and I’ve been down through a lot in my life, but it brought me to tears.”
Fabian is a former NASA space shuttle astronaut and a founder of the Hood Canal Coalition, an environmental group that opposes industrialization of Hood Canal.
He and his wife, Donna, live in the Port Ludlow-Shine area near the Canal.
Mrs. Fabian spent a sleepless night in a cold car before she saw the Shetland sheepdog and coaxed it to her as she knelt on a trail near the Olympic Park Institute on Lake Crescent on Thursday afternoon.
“She’s our Thanksgiving miracle,” she said.
Two get reward
The reunion resulted in a Thanksgiving gift for two other people as well.
They had spotted the dog and notified the Fabians, who had offered a $1,000 reward for Katie’s return.
Fabian contributed $250 to the Association of National Park Rangers in the name of Mark O’Neill, an Olympic National Park ranger, and wrote a second check for $750 to Maggie Van Catfort of the Olympic Park Institute.
O’Neill reported last week the first sighting of the 4-year-old dog since she had run off from the Fabians during a visit to the lake Oct. 24.
The Fabians, who had owned her for only three months, and the dog’s breeder, Cindy Wilson of Bremerton, searched for her the first week and nailed up posters near the Lake Crescent Lodge, which is about 20 miles west of Port Angeles.
After a story in the Peninsula Daily News, the Fabians received calls of commiseration from other dog lovers — but no one reported seeing the 4-year-old sheltie.
“We decided it was fruitless until we had a sighting,” Fabian said. “We didn’t know where to search.”
That changed Wednesday with the call from O’Neill, who had spotted the dog on the road between the entrance to the lodging area and the lodge itself.
“He followed her slowly in the car as she traveled down the road, then lost track of her,” Fabian said.
Mrs. Fabian and Wilson raced up to the lake, picking up a live animal trap from the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society on the way, and spent the night in their cars outside Lake Crescent Lodge, which is closed for the season.
Snow on ground
When they awakened, snow lay on the ground.
“We hardly slept at all, it was so cold,” Mrs. Fabian said.
And they hadn’t thought to bring breakfast.
“We made sure we had dog food, but we didn’t have food for ourselves,” she said.
They snacked on some Kashi bars Mrs. Fabian found in her glove compartment, set up the trap with the help of some workmen — and continued to search.
“We felt we had to get her that day or the next because . . . it was so cold,” she said.
At about 4 p.m., a call came in on Wilson’s cell phone.
Spotted on beach
Van Catfort had spotted a sheltie on the beach near the Olympic Park Institute and had called numbers she found on posters — first the Fabians’ home, then Wilson’s cell.
“We were yards away from her when she called,” Mrs. Fabian said.
“Cindy said, ‘We are right here. We will be there in seconds.”
When Mrs. Fabian saw Katie, she dropped to her knees and pulled out food, speaking softly to the dog.
“She walked back and forth, very nervous, and finally took the food. I grabbed her collar,” she said.
Fabian had delivered supplies to the two women, updated the posters and returned to the Port Townsend area to get another trap from the Jefferson County Humane Society.
“While I was getting the trap, my wife called and said, ‘We have the dog.'”
O’Neill and Van Catfort recognized the dog because of the posters the Fabians had put up — and because of the PDN.
“We had been up there and everybody we had talked to said, is this the dog that was in the paper?
“The PDN did an amazing amount of good,” Fabian said.
Mrs. Fabian and Wilson stayed overnight at Indian Valley Motel, part of the complex that includes Granny’s Cafe, which allowed the dogs to stay with them.
They brought Katie home about a half-hour before the Fabians were interviewed.
“She’s excited to be here. . . . She’s very thin. She’s extraordinarily hungry,” Fabian said.
Wilson, who Fabian described as “an amazing dog lady,” had owned Katie for three years before the Fabians adopted her, and had dog-sat Katie while the Fabians were out of the country for three weeks.
“This was like a loss for her family, too,” Fabian said.
Katie, who the Fabians figure lived on bear droppings and other unsavory fare, was to be taken to the vet for a check-up.
And the couple now has “increased security awareness,” as Fabian put it.
“We’re going to be awfully careful about not allowing her to bolt away. . . . She’s going to have to learn how to go out and poop on a leash.”
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.