8 ~ Wednesday, March 20, 1991

- North Shore News

Lassie comes home

A VISIT to Cultus ' ce > in late February turned into a
five-day nightmare for a West Vancouver dog-lover when
one of her two blue merle Shetland sheepdogs wandered

away from her mother’s home.

Jill Newby had headed to her
mother’s home in the Columbia
Valley with her two dogs, Nicky
and Chelsea, on Feb. With
her eight-year-old son, Matthew
skiing at Whistler with friends and
her husband away, she was anti-
cipating a few carefree days in the
quiet of the country.

As she, her mother and her
stepfather sat down to enjoy a
quiet lunch, the dogs were running
free on the 30-acre property sur-
rounding the house.

Newby’s only fear was that
Chelsea, the younger dog and the
female of the pair, might wander
through the woods to visit the
neighbor’s cows.

When she went outside later to
call the dogs, she got no response.

“I knew immediately something

By Jeremy Hainsworth
Contributing Writer

was wrong,"" she said.

She asked the neighbors if they
had seen the two dogs and then
called the local SPCA.

But no one had seen the pair.

She and her mother drove
around the immediate area calling
for her pets.

When they returned home they
found Chelsea, but not Nicky.

‘“‘l was starting to feel
panicky,’’ Newby said. ‘‘All the
dog-nabbing stories flooded my

mind.”
With a photograph of the two

dogs, Newby went to the general
store to post a notice for the 15-

Phote submitted

MATTHEW, 8, GIVES his blue merle Shetland sheepdog Nicky a
big hug. Nicky went missing last month for five days. The dog
was eventually found by Chelsea, Nicky’s sheepdog pal.

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month-old Nicky.

Newby's stepfather said he had
talked to a serviceman who had
been at the house earlier in the
day. The man reported having
seen two dogs running down the
main Columbia Valley hill, a dog
like Nicky in the lead.

For the next two days, she sear-
ched, driving along lonely
backwoods roads.

“How was | going to tell my
son Nicky was gone? What a way
to end one of your first big
weekends away from your mom,"
she said. ‘‘Matthew wept bitterly
and called out for Nicky when I
told him the heart-breaking news.
{ was sobbing over his grief and
sobbing for the dog at the same

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time.”

Newby made up a ‘‘missing”
brochure and distributed it in
West Vancouver and in the Col-
umbia and Fraser valleys.

Four days after Nicky had gone
missing, Newby returned to the
Columbia Valley. When she got to
her parents’ house, her mother
told her that Nicky had been seen.

With Chelsea picking up
Nicky’s scent, Newby holding her
leash, they set out to track the
missing dog, ending up at Cultus
Lake.

Walking along a road behind
the houses on the beach, bellow-
ing out Nicky’s name, Newby
heard a woman's voice in the
distance.

“Chelsea and I raced in that di-
rection,’’ she said, ‘‘We rounded
a corner and there was my Nicky.
We collapsed on one another,
overwhelmed for the moment by
relief and the joy of seeing one
another again.

The dog’s coat was badly mat-
ted with burrs, his feet were
cracked, he had a tick in the cen-
tre of his back. He was exhausted.

But the reunion of dog and
owner was joyous.

“Alt I know for certain,’
Newby said, “‘is that on Wednes-
day, Feb. 27, while most of the
world was celebrating the ceasefire
in the Persian Gulf War, I was
celebrating the return of my dog.”’

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