- An adventure of a lifetime for a scared dog.
Some time ago, we wrote about an adventurous British dog who got rescued from a swamp with sausages. Clearly, this Michigan pup heard the story and thought she could do better.
Maehem, a three-year-old Kai Ken escaped from her owners and went missing for nearly a week. After an exhaustive search, rescuers finally picked her up — seven miles off shore.
The dog went AWOL looking for her owner, Autumn Arsenault, who lives in Gladwin. And it’s no wonder, since the two are thick as thieves.
“Maehem is a very special dog to me. I cut her umbilical cord, I’ve raised her since birth,” Arsenault told MLive.
“She is extremely attached to me, as much as I am to her.”
That attachment could’ve resulted in Maehem and Arsenault never seeing each other again. But luckily this story has a happy ending.
An Anxious Puppy
In late February, Arsenault left to visit Ann Arbor, some 120 miles from her home. She couldn’t bring Maehem with her, so she dropped her off on the way to her to stay at her father’s in Bay City.
But after Arsenault left, Maehem start causing mayhem. The overtly-attached dog wasn’t taking being away from her owner too well.
According to Arsenault’s father, Maehem was suffering from separation anxiety. He told her that when in a phone call on February 26.
That was also the call where he informed Arsenault that Maehem had run away.
“I believe she frantically searched for me when she went through the door,” she said.
Arsenault’s father had slipped on his icy yard and fallen down. The man’s tumble scared Maehem, who decided to make herself scarce and took off.
He tried to chase after Maehem but that only made things worse. The scared dog picked up more speed and soon enough, she was gone.
“He lost visual of her on State Park Drive and Lagoon Beach. I was in Ann Arbor and felt so helpless,” recalled Arsenault.
Out on the Ice
As she heard of Maehem’s escape, Arsenault decided to cut her stay in Ann Arbor short. She headed back to Bay City to search for her lost dog.
Arsenault said she and her father spent several days — and nights — looking for Maehem, but to no avail. Some of the people living in the area said they had seen a loose dog running around the shore of Saginaw Bay.
On February 27, some people actually spotted Maehem out on the ice of the Bay. They tried to catch her, but the dog was scared out of her mind and fled.
To Arsenault, the news about Maehem being on the ice was disconcerting.
“My immediate thoughts when I heard she was on the bay was, well, I had a complete breakdown and collapsed, to be honest. I desperately feared for her life. Knowing how scared she was just broke me,” Arsenault admitted.
There was also the issue that Maehem is Kai Ken, a rare Japanese breed that looks kind-of sort-of like a wolf. It turned out that more people had spotted her, but had thought she was actually a wild coyote.
Once Arsenault had learned that Maehem was on the ice, she contacted an ice rescue firm. They, together with many local ice fishers, kept an eye of the frozen bay, but Maehem kept avoiding both notice and capture for days.
‘So Many Emotions’
Things changed on March 2, when local Aaron Wolf spotted Maehem out on the Bay. The man kindly agreed to stay where he was and keep an eye on the dog.
The ice rescue company, together with Arsenault, immediately headed towards Wolf’s location — which was seven miles out.
“We took three snowmobiles out with us on the backs and arrived at the location,” Arsenault said.
And there she was, just as Wolf had told her. But the snowmobiles the crew was riding could’ve easily scared Maehem off again.
To make sure that didn’t happen, Arsenault said they parked the vehicles a good distance away and proceeded on foot. As they crept towards Maehem, she finally recognized her owner.
“We walked up and called her and she came right up to us, crawling into our laps with lots of kisses. We slipped the collar on and rode back to shore with her in our arms,” recounted Arsenault.
All’s well that ends well. Maehem is now home, safe and sound, and recovering from her week-long adventure.
“I can’t describe the feeling of having her home. Relief is a clear descriptor, but there are so many other emotions,” said Arsenault.
Now, the two should probably start working on Maehem’s separation issues to make sure this doesn’t happen again.