It’s always inspiring to hear about people who go the extra mile to save dogs, but this couple really went the extra mile. They spent over a year trying to get a lost dog to trust them.
But their long-suffering paid off last month when they caught the dog. The dog is now getting a second chance.
Barley, the dog, was last seen at a cabin in Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan, in July 2023. He has not been seen since. He was looked for all over and the word got out on social media.
The Detroit Free Press says that the folks who owned him had only had him for six months before he disappeared. Barley was very scared after being saved from a hoarding situation. She was still dealing with trauma.
The owners lived far away and had to make a 10-hour round-trip drive every weekend to look for their dog. The search went on for weeks with no sign of him. Reports from FOX 17 say that they eventually gave up ownership of the dog.
In Chippewa County, though, people kept an eye out for Barley. He would sometimes show up on someone’s security camera, but he was hard to catch because he was shy.
Barley was being looked for by people like Deanna Suggitt and her husband Denny from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Someone told them on Facebook that they had seen the lost dog in the yard of a neighbor.
Because of this, they set out to earn the dog’s trust and catch him. This took more than a year. They would drive 10 to 15 miles every day to the spot twice a day to feed the dog.
Denyse told the Detroit Free Press, “Every morning my wife boiled liver and hot dogs and we put them on a bed of Pedigree hard dog food.” “Every afternoon, she would give him Pedigree hard food and top it with half a can of Pedigree stew or meat.”
Barley had to be kept safe, warm, and fed while he was out on his own, and the task also had the long-term goal of trapping him and taking him in. Other neighbors helped with the rescue by giving security cameras, feeding stations, and a makeshift place to sleep and stay safe.
Barley was scared at first and ran back into the woods with his food. But as he got used to the couple feeding him, he quickly warmed up to them. “He would look down the road and ask, ‘Where are you?'” Deanna told FOX 17 if they were running late because of something like a winter storm.
Fourteen months after he went missing, their hard work finally paid off after more than a year. They finally caught Barley last month when they worked with a professional dog trap line.
The dog was finally in good hands, but the couple still had a long way to go. Soon after catching Barley, the Suggitts came back to adopt him.
The four-year-old dog has been scared and traumatized in the past, and he has also spent half of his life alone in the woods. It won’t be easy. They told FOX 17 that they are “up for it” even though they know it will be a “long process.”
He said, “We’re going to take him home and try to teach him that he’s a dog and that it’s okay to play and have fun.”
We’re so grateful that Deanna and Denny Suggitt took the time to save Barley over the past year. He’s now safe and treasured.
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