Runaway Iditarod Dog Found a Month After She Went Missing
Sarabi, an Alaskan husky, was found 50 miles away from where she got loose.
— -- A runaway Iditarod sled dog was found safe after a more than 50-mile journey in Alaska.
Sarabi, an Alaskan husky, escaped from handlers in Anchorage on March 21 after being dropped from the Iditarod race by musher Laura Allaway due to a sore shoulder. Allaway and a team of volunteers put up fliers, but she said she started to lose hope.
"I was pretty sure that she wasn’t around anymore after 3 weeks of no confirmed sighting," Allaway told ABC News.
Then, Sarabi was spotted in Glacier View, about 100 miles from Anchorage. Less than a week later, neighbors spotted Sarabi in Palmer, about 40 miles northeast of Anchorage, roaming in the backyard of the Rev. Tim Carrick of the United Protestant Presbyterian Church.
After the sighting, Carrick started leaving food out at night for the 3-year-old dog last Friday, he told ABC News today, and every morning, the food would be gone. A woman that Carrick described as expert in rescuing and finding lost dogs then set up a camera.
Sure enough, Sarabi was seen on video digging into the food. On Monday night, they decided it was time to catch Sarabi, so they put a cage out that would trap the dog when she went inside to grab the food.
It took less than 30 minutes for Sarabi to head into the cage.
Carrick returned the dog to Morgan Hall, a friend of Allaway's, at around 9 p.m. Monday, and Hall is currently en route to Fairbanks to return the itinerant Iditarod hound at a kennel where Allaway works.
Allaway said she won’t be able to meet Sarabi immediately because she will be traveling.
"I want to go and hug her but I feel confident that my crew of volunteers and my friends and everybody is on it," Allaway said, noting she expects to reunite with Sarabi on April 28. The musher said she plans on bringing Sarabi to Anchorage a week later to meet the volunteers who selflessly offered their time searching for the race dog.