Walking a class of fifth graders to their Art class, elementary associate Lisa Kielty looked out the breezeway door at the AGWSR school, her eyes landing on the most pitiful creature she’d seen in a very long time.
Laying outside, shivering in the rain falling down at a steady pace, was a dog. Kielty couldn’t let it be. She and Renee Simon – the fifth-grade teacher, slowly opened the door. The creature was so cold that it wouldn’t get up, nor come near the pair. They reached out to Justin Kerns, who was just leaving the school.
Kerns, a sandwich in hand, did his best to entice the drenched animal, but couldn’t even get it to sniff the food being offered.
“It just looked so miserable,” Kielty said. “Justin got a blanket and picked the poor thing up and took it to the Ackley Veterinary Center.”
Once at the vet’s office, the dog was able to dry off a bit, warm up, and was scanned for a chip. Fortunately, not only was there a chip, but the information on the chip was current. Smokey had his own humans, who had nearly given up on ever seeing him again.
When Tracy Quigley of rural Frederika answered her phone that cold, early November morning, she got the surprise of her life. Smokey had disappeared nine weeks prior – from her home some 60 miles away from Ackley.
“He’s ventured off once before, but came home after four days,” began Tracy. “This time he took off and we think he may have gotten picked up. We live on a dead-end road, so it’s quite possible that’s what happened.”
Tracey and her family, especially daughter, Ashley, were overwhelmed with happiness.
“We’d been searching, but of course hadn’t found anything,” Tracy explained. “I asked neighboring farmers who were in the fields at the time, to let me know if they found anything.” She didn’t want to see what might have become of the family’s beloved pet but needed to know what had happened to him.
“We had posters up, notified the sheriff, and driven around for days,” Tracy said. “We even left the porch light on and the front door open for him to walk in.”
The reward she’d offered got the family nowhere.
Upon answering the clinic’s call, Tracy immediately headed to Ackley to pick Smokey up. When she arrived, she wasn’t sure he knew who the family was.
“But when we got out to the pickup, he knew!”
Smokey, a little thinner than when he disappeared, spent a few weeks getting two smaller meals a day, until he settled back into his routine with the family’s other dog – a husky.
“I didn’t think we’d ever see Smokey again,” Tracy said, adding that after a bath, Smokey went to lay in his ‘safe’ place, behind the family’s couch. He also spent several nights sleeping cuddled up to Tracy. “We’re all very happy, including the grandkids!”
The Quigley family is very thankful that the AGWSR staff took time to rescue Smokey and find him the right care and the right people to help him get home. And of course to the staff at the Ackley Vet Center.
The family will forever wonder what really happened to Smokey and how he managed to get to Ackley, but they are grateful he landed in a caring community.
Dee Hinders, co-owner of the vet center says that Smokey’s story should be a lesson to all dog owners.
“Smokey would never have made it back home had he not been microchipped,” she explained. “It goes to show how important microchips are. No one thinks this will happen, but it does.”
Hinders said that the center has assisted in the reunion of several pets and owners, but none this far away before.
As for Smokey, he’s not saying how he got to Ackley, but the border collie mix is sticking pretty close to home since his long adventure.
