Dog News

Owner Finds Dogs 300 Miles Away

by Katherine

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Cori Lamarche’s two female boxers, Meisha and Alia, disappeared from her Cariboo, BC, Canada, home during a heavy rain storm on August 1, 2013. Three days later she was able to find her dogs, but surprisingly, the pets had made their way to the Chilliwack SPCA facility that is about 300 miles away from Lamarche’s home.

Cori Lamarche’s boxer, Meisha.
Cori Lamarche’s boxer, Meisha.

It is a mystery how and why the dogs traveled so far in such and short period of time, but Lamarche is glad she finally has her dogs back.

The dog owner started searching for her dogs online by browsing the nearby shelters’ websites, the Williams Lake SPCA and Missing BC Pets. After sending emails to these organizations, Lamarche received news from Missing BC Pets telling her that the Chilliwack SPCA had her pets.

“‘That’s impossible,’ I thought,” Lamarche told The Williams Lake Tribune. “They couldn’t have made it to Chilliwack.”

After seeing pictures of her dogs on the shelter’s website, the pet owner arranged with Chilliwack shelter manager Ivanna Ferris to pick up her dogs within the next days, but for reasons beyond Lamarche’s control, she couldn’t make the 5-hour road trip until weeks later.

In the meantime, Lamarche wanted to know how her dogs traveled such a great distance.

According to Ferris, a woman traveling from George to Vancouver called reporting two stray dogs she found on the road. Chilliwack SPCA agreed to stay open after hours to give the “Good Samaritan” time to drop off the pets, but after speaking with the dog’s owner, Ferris felt the long distance the pets traveled was suspicious.

“We repeatedly tried to get more information from the woman who found them,” said Ferris. “But our phone calls were not answered. The younger female boxer was in heat and we could tell that the two dogs had been actively bred, but were in good health and good condition.”

Lamarche has asked Chilliwack SPCA to release the dogs’ finder contact information in an effort to learn more about her dog’s traveling adventures. However, the organization says releasing this information is against their policy.

According to BCSPCA general manager of community relations Lorie Chortyk, the information is not being released because their policy requires them to keep people’s personal information private.

“Many of the animals we take in are related to cases of abuse and violence to animals and we don’t want to put anyone at risk by indicating the new location of an animal who has been seized from a dangerous situation/person,” said Chortyk.

Lamarche believes whoever took her pets from her area and dropped them off hundreds of miles away had malicious intent.

The dog owner says that after so many days apart, paying costly fees to get her pets back, and traveling 5 hours in a car was worth being reunited with her loved dogs.

Nothing beats having your loved fur-babies safe with you.