Minneapolis Man Reunited With Dog Lost In BWCA

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A hiking trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area turned into a month of heartache for a Minneapolis man.

John Lundquist was hiking with his dog, Lindsay, when she got scared by thunder and bolted into the wilderness. After a month in the woods, it seemed hopeless that Lindsay would ever be seen again.

But as WCCO's Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield shows us, she is back home after passing the ultimate test of survival.

It was a late September adventure. Lundquist and his cattle dog mix were hiking the Boundary Waters, as they had many times before.

"Dog was in front of me 95 percent of the way and then at the very end when it got pretty dark by that point and it started thundering and she just disappeared," Lundquist said.

Lundquist searched for days, running low on food and needing to get back to his daughters, he returned to Minneapolis.

"It was just surreal, the whole thing it was just like I can't believe we're leaving without the dog," Lundquist said.

John kept looking though, posting on local message boards, and writing a plea on Facebook.

"It just kind of snowballed and within a week my Facebook post had been shared over 8,000 times, which is crazy. I've never had anything liked more than 12 times ya know," Lundquist said.

Someone called John. Lindsay had swam to an island, she'd been rescued and was at a home in Ely. But she escaped again.

Days later and 10 miles away, someone else spotted her. But it wasn't promising.

"She had seen my dog running across the highway late at night with a wolf chasing her and at that point I thought maybe that's the end of the story now," Lundquist said.

But it wasn't. A rescue group called "Retrievers" placed food in the area, and as she was captured.

Lindsay is now back where she belongs. A city pup at heart, she clearly knows how to survive.

Lindsay was checked out by a vet in Ely. She's being treated for Lyme disease. She's also lost about a fourth of her body weight.

It's not clear how she survived without food for so long, but she's now getting plenty of food and plenty of love.