Literally thousands of Moorhead area residents pitched in when Sydney Bush’s young German shepherd Kai disappeared in late January. A week later, smelly smoked turkey and a partially open garage door finally lured him him to her and her 3-month-old daughter Aspen. (Photo/Russ Hanson)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson
hansonnanc@gmail.com

It was suppertime on Jan. 22 when Sydney Bush’s father stopped by her home in south Moorhead to let her dog outside to do his business. He turned around for just a moment … and Kai was gone.
At first Doug Bush wasn’t too troubled. The year-old German shepherd, usually clipped to the end of the chain on the deck, had never disappeared before. He went looking, but failed to spot the leggy, skittish pooch.
By the time Sydney, 21, got home from her job as a CNA at Rosewood on Broadway, Doug and her mother Lisa were beginning to worry. It was early in last month’s record cold snap – the thermometer would dip to 9 below that night – and Kai had never spent the night alone outdoors. Surely he would come home.
Thus began a drama that electrified almost 1,000 pet lovers from Moorhead and the surrounding area for the next week.
By Wednesday there was still no sign of the pet that Sydney and her boyfriend, Zach Sands, had adopted eight months earlier. Undernourished and frightened at the time, they’d bonded with the pup over the next months. Even now, he remained notably nervous around men – perhaps the legacy of a neglected puppyhood – but fell in love with Sydney and, especially, their 3-month-old daughter Aspen. “The moment we brought Aspen home, he claimed her as his baby,” her mother remembers.
Zach had been called to Nebraska a day before for his job as an iron worker, so Sydney launched the search herself. She posted photos of the missing pup on Facebook’s page dedicated to Fargo-Moorhead missing pets and to Pawboost.com, another page dedicated to reuniting lost critters. She called KFGO’s Pet Patrol and the Moorhead Police.
As she told her story again and again, the temperature kept falling – minus 18 that night. But dozens, then hundreds of warm-hearted pet lovers began rising to the challenge. By the end of the ordeal, Kai’s photo had been shared online nearly 1,000 times. Facebookers came forward to share sightings of Kai around Village Green and nearby environs. A stranger printed 400 copies of a flyer and mapped out routes to distribute it all over south Moorhead. Experienced dog owners, including members of the F-M retrievers group, loaned Sydney a live trap and trail cameras; others suggested drones to search Village Green Golf Course, where he’d be spotted again and again in coming days.
Meanwhile, Sydney and her regretful dad endlessly criss-crossed the neighborhood themselves. In the next six days, the two would rack up more than 1,000 miles, all within their neighborhood.
On Day Two, Sydney’s phone rang frantically with sightings. He was spotted north of Interstate 94 near M State and Menard’s. By the time Sydney got there, eight other cars were pulled over along the highway, watching the carefree dog rolling in the fresh snow in the median. But when his rescuers – mostly men – tried to coax him, he took off cross-country like a speeding bullet. No luck.
“I’d been sent home from work with influenza, but I couldn’t just sit there. I had to find him,” Sydney says. Sometimes alone, sometimes with baby Aspen bundled up in her car seat, she probed compulsively to spot the shy, thoroughly rattled canine. She followed up on every lead shared on Facebook, catching an occasional glimpse of her ghost-like dog but never scooping him up. “I got close one time and called him. He just looked at me for a minute and ran away,” she says. “By that time I had almost no voice left. I don’t think he knew it was me.”
Tips kept rolling in. A Moorhead school bus driver spotted him along old Highway 52 headed for Sabin. Other bus drivers devoted their off-duty hours to searching. Nor were they alone. By that time, 30 to 40 cars were constantly circling the neighborhood on the hunt. “People knocked on doors. They peeked into backyards and checked garages and outbuildings,” Sydney says. The searchers became so familiar with each other that they’d wave as they passed on the street.
On Thursday night (overnight low minus 16), Sydney and her brother, also named Zach, walked the Village Green Golf Course, where several spottings had occurred. She brought along a propane heater, a supply of roast chicken and familiar-smelling blankets from home. “The chicken kept freezing,” she says, able to laugh about it now. “I’d thaw it out on the heater.” But after camping out from 7:30 to 1 a.m. with no sign of the wayward hound, she had to head home.
Sydney kept searchers and well-wishers up to date via Facebook as the campaign progressed. When she admitted to losing hope – “I’m beginning to think he doesn’t want to come home” – her online friends were quick to boost her spirits. They continued to share ideas, and she continued to take them.
By Friday and Saturday, the fruitless search seemed to have slowed. Seizing on one experienced well-wisher’s suggestion, she tried a new tack. “Zach had gotten a smoked turkey from his boss for Christmas,” she says. “I got it out of the freezer and thawed it out. Then, as someone suggested, I dowsed it with liquid smoke, chicken broth, dog food – whatever I thought might appeal to him.” She adds, “The house smelled just awful ….”
She and her helpers used the smelly treat to bait a borrowed live trap Saturday night. It didn’t work.
Then she got a call from a kind couple who’d spotted a fur pelt in the deep snow of a ditch near Church of the Good Shepherd on 40th Avenue. “I really don’t want to tell you, but we thought you’d want to know,” the caller told her.
Sydney and her father followed them out to the country. “I saw black and brown fur. At first, it did look like Kai. I was sobbing,” Sydney remembers. But as they approached the carcass, the brown seemed a tad too dark. When they got close, the Bushes realized the animal was a dead coyote.
“We were almost defeated,” Lisa says. “My husband felt so bad – after all, he was the one who let Kai out. I told him, ‘I sure hope you’re ready to buy a new puppy.’”
Overhearing, Sydney rejected that out of hand. “We don’t want any other dog,” she cried. “We want Kai.”
On Sunday night, after Sydney and Aspen had finally laid down for a nap (“We didn’t eat. We didn’t sleep all week,” she notes), her father heard scratching at the front door. He went out and followed paw prints around the corner … right into the garage, where the stinky smoked turkey had been wafting its magical aroma from a partly open door.
Kai was home.
“There’s no way we can ever thank all the people who helped bring Kai home,” Sydney’s mother says. “It kind of restores your faith in mankind. We cannot believe how all the community came together to help us.”
“I just can’t thank people enough,” Sydney adds. “Words can’t express how thankful we feel for the support, the searching, the suggestions and the encouragement when I was almost ready to give up.” They’re showing their gratitude in many ways. Lisa dropped off five dozen cookies at the school district’s bus garage. When Zach returns from Nebraska, he and Sydney plan to host a gathering for all the friends, newfound and old, who joined in the campaign to bring their dog home.
Kai is little the worse for his adventure. The Bushes’ family vet pronounced him relatively healthy – a little frostbitten, a torn dewclaw, leaner but surprisingly sound after six days alone in the polar vortex. He slept for four days straight after his return. And his taste for adventure travel seems notably dimmed.
“He doesn’t even like to go outside anymore to do his business,” Sydney observes. She says, too, he’s in line for a very special award: “We’re going to present him with a GPS collar.”