A great Pyrenees dog that survived an incredible ordeal last month is now in limbo after she was found living in a car in Olds.
She had been rescued by Sundre firefighters north of Sundre on the Red Deer River after being stranded for about a week in December.
Jacquie, a woman from the Olds area who asked not to have her last name used out of concern for her safety, said she was having a discussion with two other people on Jan. 3 about a woman who was living in her car in the area in recent weeks along with a dog and two cats.
The car was parked near the Tim Hortons in the Cornerstone shopping centre that day and Jacquie said she was concerned for the animals due to the cold and the condition of the car's interior.
ìSo I went and broke into the car because I saw her and I saw inside the car and the car was covered in just disgusting stuff and she had four square feet of space and she's a big dog,î she said, adding the dog, named Solei, was thin and in poor health.
The owner of the car and the animals, Iris Nunns, was in Tim Hortons and came out to confront Jacquie when she saw what was happening.
Jacquie said Nunns told her that Solei was so thin because she had recently run away for 10 days.
Eventually, Jacquie was able to convince Nunns to give her custody of the dog for the weekend and, after informing police about the situation, brought Solei to Dr. Curtis Luzi at the Olds Pioneer Veterinary Centre for an assessment and treatment.
Luzi said Solei came in dehydrated, likely with parasites inside her and with no appetite.
ìThe coat condition was OK, but she's tremendously underweight,î he said, adding he rated her body condition as ìtwo out of nine.î
ìYou look at this dog and you think, well, she doesn't look so bad. But when you put your hands on her and feel, you can see there's a lot of rib there and not a lot of muscle mass.î
Although Nunns called Luzi several times over the weekend, he said it was not his place to intervene in the situation.
After the assessment, Jacquie decided she would not return Solei to Nunns.
ìI won't give this dog back. I'll go to jail before I do,î she said, adding she plans to keep Solei in her care until Luzi declares her fit for adoption.
Nunns said she is now staying with friends in the Eagle Hill area but added she was living in her car for two weeks with Solei, who she has owned for roughly 10 years, and two cats in late December and early January.
She said she kept the car's motor running to keep her and the animals warm and took Solei for frequent walks.
Nunns said she had previously been living with other people in the Eagle Hill area but had decided to drive to British Columbia to escape the Alberta winter.
ìAnd things just kept going wrong.î
She never made it out of the area, however, and the night before Jacquie took Solei, Nunns said her car died.
She added she was very upset at the time because the car had belonged to her mother who had passed away and the people who were trying to take Solei were eventually able to wear her down with requests to take the dog to a veterinarian.
ìI finally said yes to get them out of my hair,î she said. ìIf it hadn't have been that day, and everything going on around me, I wouldn't have said, OK, take Solei for the night.î
Nunns said Solei was thin because she had disappeared for two weeks in early December and was eventually found on an ice floe on the Red Deer River.
After the rescue, she said, Solei was assessed by a veterinarian in Sundre.
ìAnd I have talked to him since and he said there is no reason why that dog needs to be in foster care,î she said.
Dr. Uli Schmiemann at Sundre's Pioneer Veterinary Services confirmed Solei had been rescued by the Sundre Fire Department and he had assessed her after the rescue.
While the dog was thin, he said, she ìwasn't in horrible shape.î
He added he did contact Luzi to say Solei had been rescued after escaping her owner and that he had assessed her.
Schmiemann said although he had told Nunns a car was ìnot an adequate place to have a big dog like that,î he did not believe that she had neglected the dog.
Nunns said she wants Solei back and was preparing to approach police about the matter.
ìThat dog was stolen,î she said.
Const. Kurtis Milbrandt of the Olds RCMP said police had received calls about Nunns living in her car but when they attended no animals were present.
He said police are not actively investigating the matter and would only become involved if the SPCA provided them with evidence of possible criminal abuse against an animal.
The Red Deer SPCA said they had received a call from the dog's owner on Dec. 7 that Solei had gone missing on Dec. 3 and another call on Jan. 10 stating the dog had been stolen.
Three Sundre firefighters rescued Solei from the river shortly before Christmas.
Marty Butts, Dave Bennett and Nicole Toth debated who would get to keep the dog before they took it to Pioneer Veterinary Services and it matched the description of a missing dog.
ìBonnie and Gord Johnson phoned the fire hall and left a message and said ëthere's a dog we've been seeing down on the Red Deer River across from our place and we can't reach it from the west side of the river, somebody has to come in from the east side and get it because it's been sitting there for a week',î said Marty Butts, Sundre's fire chief.
The Johnsons threw food out to Solei and she gratefully chowed down. They didn't think she would make it through another night.
ìIt was a beaten path there for the whole week, you could see she just kept walking in a circle, she was confused and didn't know how to get off of there,î said Butts.
The three firefighters loaded up skidoos and went down to the river, but had a hard time finding the dog.
After phoning the Johnsons, they met them at the river with a flashlight and directed them to where Solei was.
ìWe waited for a signal so we knew where to go because we had a rough idea of where he explained,î he said.
ìThen we saw the dog and it was just kind of going around and then sitting there. It was distressed and it didn't know what to do, and very weak, and the snow was so deep. It was like 40 below that week so I don't even know how she made it through that spell.î
They brought a cap sled with them to transport the dog in.
ìWe trenched down through the snow onto the ice where she was and grabbed her. She was so weak and skinny. It was like feeling a rack of bones. It was pretty sad. She wasn't going to last much longer. She didn't have much energy to even bite us. She came right with us.î
After taking the dog to the fire hall and feeding it, they phoned the veterinary clinic.
ìThe vet indicated there was a person that was missing a dog about a week ago that matched that description, from Eagle Hill. So it kind of all pieced together after that,î he said.
Bennett kept the dog for a few days before the match was confirmed and Solei was returned to her home.
ìIf nobody would have claimed it, Dave and I looked at her and thought one of us would probably keep her because we kind of got attached to her,î he said.
They figured the dog was young but found out it was around 10 years old.
ìIt's not in our job description, but we couldn't just let it suffer and die,î he said.
ìBeing a volunteer you always like to help. If it's an animal or a person you kind of get that feeling you should help. I guess that's why we do it.î
