Dog Survives Sixteen Days In Desert

Las Vegas, Nevada (KTNV) -- A Las Vegas dog survived 16 days in the desert.

Margaux Hansberry and her boyfriend Jonathon Cline were on their way to California with their rescue dog Mochi. They made a pit stop in Primm.

Hansberry and Cline went inside and left Mochi in the car with the windows half way down. When the couple returned to the car, Mochi was gone.

A security guard told them he saw the white Jindo sprinting towards the desert.

"Surreal," said Cline. "I didn't think that my carelessness would pan out that way. We have left him in the car before. All that we were worried about was the temperature. So when we came back and Margaux realized he was gone, my whole world froze."

The couple immediately started looking for their dog. They spent all night and the next day and night searching for Mochi in the desert near the Nevada/California stateline.

They took to social media to post about their missing dog.

Over the course of the next 16 days, the couple hired professional drone videographers to get an aerial view of the desert. They also went on ATV excursions and posted fliers for dozens of miles in Nevada and California.

Toward the end of the second week, a family spotted Mochi and made sure to mark down the coordinates of where they saw him.

They relayed the GPS coordinates to the couple and with some help, they were able to get in touch with an animal trapper.

The animal trapper spent the night 10 miles into the desert to help bring Mochi home. She set up the trap about a half mile away from where she slept.

By morning, Mochi was in the trap and had eaten everything the trapper put inside the trap.

"He had wounds on his left shoulder and on the inside I think from the harness rubbing," said the animal trapper. "And he devastated that trap. Everything in there to eat was ate. It was done. And I think he was just waiting to go home."

Hansberry and Cline had a happy reunion with Mochi at the vet.

Mochi lost 10 pounds from being out in the desert for 16 days but he is doing much better now.

This isn't the first time Mochi looked death in the face.

Mochi's owners rescued him from a South Korean meat farm last year and flew him to the states.

"He's a survivor, twice now," said Hansberry.

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