By Amanda Jeffery, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Drayton Valley and District Free Press
On March 4 at 4:42 a.m., Jody Toope got the news she’d been needing to hear for 11 weeks and five days: her dog Chilli was safe and ready to come home.
The call came from the Scent Rescue Team, a non-profit pet tracking company based in Langley, B.C. Stephanie Tolea and her sister Nicole had come out with dogs to track down Chilli in the forest around Lodgepole.
“She says to me, ‘Jody, we got her,’ and I said, ‘Shut up!’” says Toope.
Due to the early hour, Toope woke up her children and told them they wouldn’t be going to school that day before she left her home in Calmar to meet the team in Drayton Valley.
At the time of her rescue, Chilli had been missing since December 13, when she had been spooked by the sound of the chainsaw Toope’s husband was using to chop up firewood near the Secure plant by Lodgepole.
As Chilli was a rescue dog, Toope and her husband didn’t know much about her history prior to her adoption three years ago. They didn’t think it would be a big deal to take her out to get firewood and didn’t realize the sound of a chainsaw would send her running.
Toope says Chilli was trained well and had great recall. They had no idea that a loud noise would scare her so much that she would forget about those commands.
Though for many attempting to find a dog lost in the Crown lands near the Brazeau Dam would be a lost cause, Toope was determined to bring Chilli back home. Even though there were no confirmed sightings of Chilli for the first three weeks, Toope knew she was still alive.
“I just felt it,” says Toope. “That might sound crazy, but I just felt it. I didn’t feel like she was gone… I never ever ever had a feeling of dread.”
There was no question in Toope’s mind; Chilli was out there in the woods with no food and no shelter during some of the coldest winter months in Alberta, but she was surviving.
As Toope started her search for Chilli, her posts on Facebook started garnering attention. News of Chilli reached many people across the province and the country. It was thanks to this campaign and the efforts of her friends that word began to spread and people started looking out for signs of Chilli.
Not long after Chilli went missing, Toope hired a company out of Calgary to come out with their thermal drones to look over the area where her dog had gone missing. At that point Chilli had survived her first deep freeze, which saw temperatures close to -40 degrees Celcius. They had no luck with the thermal drones, but Toope wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.
Over the three-month period, numerous strangers, friends, and oil and gas workers gave Toope information on Chilli’s whereabouts as they spotted her moving around. Many even spent time looking for her, and others used their personal drones to search as well.
Throughout her time out in the forest, Chilli had to survive two major cold snaps that saw temperatures dip to nearly -40 degrees Celcius; avoid large predators like lynx, cougars, and wolves; and evade traps set by hunters that were meant to catch the larger predators.
“We still don’t know how she did it,” says Toope. “We’re baffled by it.”
Chilli was in survival mode, and experts told Toope that she would only be focused on food, shelter, and safety. They advised Toope not to call out to Chilli if she was spotted and to avoid chasing after her. The dog was not in the right headspace to respond in the way she typically would.
Toope says Chilli had a circuit of about 10 to 15 km that made it difficult for them to locate her. It was her territory, and in that area she was looking for food and avoiding danger by constantly moving.
Over the three months, Toope saw Chilli twice.
The first time Toope saw her, Chilli had been spotted walking along the side of the road on Highway 620. A couple heading into work called the sighting in to Toope, who was just packing up and leaving the Secure plant.
“All that [advice] went out the window when I saw her,” says Toope.
When she spotted Chilli, she pulled over, jumped out of her van and started running toward her. She called her name, while the gentleman who had called Toope about the sighting followed behind Chilli, trying to drive her in Toope’s direction. Unfortunately, Chilli became spooked and darted back into the woods.
“That was heartbreaking. To know that my dog didn’t know me and didn’t know my voice to come to me,” says Toope. “She chose the bush that day.”
Toope had been out in the area searching for Chilli for about a week. On March 1, she received a call from a couple who were in the area looking for wild horses. They said they had spotted Chilli near Elk River Road, which was near a trapper’s cabin that Chilli had spent time at before.
When she got to the cabin, Toope spotted Chilli in the distance, and though she had lost a lot of weight, she was carrying a soup bone.
“She wouldn’t come to me then, either,” says Toope.
When Tolea found Chilli, they were near the Secure plant where Chilli had disappeared. A company based out of Grande Prairie was flying its thermal drone overhead trying to locate the dog as well, but Tolea says they didn’t get any sightings of Chilli that way.
Instead, they travelled out to the plant, where the most recent sighting had been, and chummed the area. When they saw Chilli come out into the parking lot of the plant, they decided to drop their trap right there.
Using raw meat and straw donated by community members, Tolea was able to coax Chilli into a large trap, similar to a kennel.
It was at that point they got to make the phone call to Toope.
When Toope arrived, Tolea encouraged her to reach into the trap and grab Chilli by the collar so they could put a leash on her. Toope says she wasn’t afraid and reached in right away.
Once the leash was on Chilli, her demeanor changed, and she ran over to Toope to sit between her legs. Chilli didn’t want to leave Toope’s side.
The vet at Rocky Rapids gave Chilli the all-clear later that morning. He told Toope that other than the weight loss, he didn’t find anything to be concerned about with Chilli; no broken teeth, lacerations, or broken bones. Even her bloodwork was great.
“The support that I got from Drayton Valley and all the oilfield workers out there in Lodgepole… I’m humbled by it,” says Toope. “I’m so humbled by the outpouring of support.”
She says when she needed help to raise funds to get the Scent Rescue Team out, people didn’t hesitate to donate to her cause.
“I want to give a huge thank you to everyone that supported us,” says Toope. “Everybody played a part in getting this girl home. So many communities came together for a stranger and her dog. It’s unreal and I’m humbled.”
