Dog that eluded searchers for 16 months in central Pa. returns to owner

MONTANDON — ”She’s a survivor true and true” is what a 6-year-old female goldendoodle named Bree is being called.

The dog is back home after 16 months of roaming Snyder County.

Bree escaped from the groomer’s in Selinsgrove on Oct. 24, 2022. Although there were frequent sightings of her, she was not captured until March 2.

Shannon Kohan, the owner of Central Pennsylvania Pet Recovery who trapped Bree, gave her the “survivor” tag.

“We had hoped to get her back but we didn’t expect it,” says Bree’s owner, Susan Liegey of Montandon. She and her husband Mervin had bought a Pomeranian as a replacement dog.

In the middle of the first winter “we thought she’d never survive,” Liegey says. They figured a coyote got her or a hunter shot her, she said.

Bree escaped when a door was opened to take out the laundry, she says. Liegey was driving up the road and saw Bree running, stopped, and called for her.

Bree didn’t stop, Liegey says.

Kohan was contacted about two weeks after the dog went missing and “I jumped right in,” she says. After Bree was reportedly seen on Nov. 7, 2022, “we were on the hunt,” she said.

This is Kohan’s account of Bree’s odyssey through part of Snyder County:

The dog disappeared but about 10 days later she showed up in the Middleburg area. Traps and cameras were set up after she was seen eating cat food outside an elderly woman’s house but she disappeared.

Bree appeared again for several days and then went missing until observed on Nov. 24, 2022, crossing Route 104 near the Shade Mountain Golf Course at night in front of the car. People in the car stopped and tried to catch her but she ran.

The next reported sighting was on Dec. 8, 2022, in Beaver Springs. She was again seen on Feb. 15, 2023, in the Beaver Springs area but then disappeared again until last March 31. That is when she was seen sleeping under a car in a junkyard in Middleburg.

There were no more sightings until Jan. 12, 2024, when she again was observed sleeping at a farm near Middleburg. People there were not sure what to do so they reached out to the dog warden and made social media posts.

The dog warden tried to trap Bree for a week but she took off. She showed up on Feb. 29 sleeping in a barn on a farm on Creek Bottom Road outside Middleburg that has horses and rabbits.

The next day Kohan set a trap, did not activate it but placed food in it. Within 15 minutes she saw via camera Bree go in, grab a piece of food, and come back out.

On March 2, Kohan activated the trap. Shortly afterward she got an alert on her watch the cameras had been activated and Bree was caught.

Bree came to the front of the trap and let Kohan pet her so she could put a leash on her.

“She was very friendly. She was almost thankful in her actions that she was finally done running,” Kohan says.

It was not until Bree was in Kohan’s vehicle that her identity was confirmed by a microchip.

“It took about 10 minutes before I could call the owner,” she explains, adding that it took her that long to stop crying, she said. “I hugged her and loved her,” she said.

When she called the Liegeys, Susan answered and Kohan asked if she was sitting down. She said she was and Kohan told her, “We have Bree.”

Liegey’s reaction: “I was crying on the inside, I had butterflies and was shaking. It was unbelievable. I called the groomer, they couldn’t believe it.”

The reunion between Bree and Susan took place at the Sunbury Animal Hospital. It took only a few minutes until Bree recognized Susan’s scent. Once she did, she put her nose next to her and would not leave her side, Kohan says.

Bree spent two nights at the animal hospital after being sedated to be shaved because her hair was so matted, she said. She was in good health and surprisingly, she had lost only one pound, she says.

How is Bree doing today? “It’s like she has never been away,” says Liegey while taking with PennLive on Sunday.

“I have no idea how she survived,” she says. She speculates it was likely a combination of road kill and the cat and dog food that people put out for their pets.

She expressed her appreciation to Kohan who runs her pet recovery operation on donations and the approximately two dozen Snyder County residents who posted on Facebook their efforts to find Bree.

Kohan played a role in the Liegeys getting the Pomeranian. She trapped that dog in the Riverside area in Northumberland County after it ran away from an elderly couple in the Sunbury area.

It had been roaming along the North Branch of the Susquehanna River, she says.

Kohan took it to Mamma and Me Rescue in Mount Carmel. The Liegeys adopted it when the couple gave up ownership, she says.

They also have two other dogs including a boxer they acquired after Bree went missing. “My husband always wanted a boxer,” Liegey says.