GREENWOOD TWP- Laura Williams is relieved that her beloved bearded collie, Moxie, is back home after she went missing for three days and apparently survived a serious attack by a large predator.
Moxie’s three-day odyssey began after she bolted from Williams’ car while she was dropping her off at a dog groomer in Pike Township. That began a desperate search as nearby neighbors reported sightings of coyote and wolves in the area.
Moxie ran off just after 9 a.m. on Friday, April 4. Williams, with help from the groomer, spent hours wandering around the property calling for the missing dog. But after a few hours without response, Williams went home to figure out a new plan.
She got some good advice, with hundreds of responses to a post on Facebook. She left the dog’s crate right where she had bolted from, and brought some clothing and blankets with familiar scents, as well as food and water.
There was some fresh snow on the ground, which improved the odds of finding tracks.
But on Saturday there was still no sign of Moxie. Jason Johnson and Christina Nelson, a couple who had seen William’s Facebook pleas, came and set up a trail cam on Saturday. They also found canine tracks nearby but weren’t sure if they were wolf or coyote.
Sunday morning, the beginning of the third day since Moxie’s disappearance, was unseasonably cold, which worried Williams. But there was some potentially positive news when she came back to the groomer’s property, along with another helper, John Halloran, an amateur drone operator.
Halloran’s wife works at Tavern in the Bay, and they had heard that Moxie was missing. Halloran had done some handyman work for Williams, and he knew how special Moxie was, and what a strong relationship she had with Williams.
“Dogs have incredible senses,” Halloran said. “They know when you are sad and upset, and they comfort you.”
He hoped to get out with his drone right away on Saturday, but the drone’s software wasn’t compatible with his new cell phone, and it took him a while to find the right software. By Sunday morning, he was able to help.
There were signs that perhaps Moxie was nearby. “The crate was knocked over and food was gone,” Williams said. “The trail cam showed something moving around but we couldn’t tell if it was my dog.”
“I felt such a wave of grief when I saw the crate knocked over,” she said. “I was crying so hard.”
Halloran said he had meditated about finding the dog, had said some prayers, and envisioned finding Moxie. Once on the site, he had a good idea of the best place to look, and immediately got the drone up in the air, over a large open clearing in the woods. The day was really windy, and his drone had trouble staying airborne, but within 10 minutes he spotted something suspicious on the top of a deer stand in the middle of a clearing. At first, he thought it might be a deer hide, but when he flew the drone directly over the tree stand, the furry bundle moved.
“That fluff stood up and started barking,” he said.
For the love of a breed
Williams makes no bones about it: she loves bearded collies. The breed, a sheep-herding dog from Scotland, is known for their heart, energy, and sense of humor— as well as their almost-human looking eyes, hiding underneath their shaggy coat.
Williams has owned nine of these shaggy dogs over the years, known to many as the “nanny” in Peter Pan or the dog in the Disney film, “Shaggy D.A.”
Currently, Williams owns two dogs, six-year-old Moxie a full-blooded “beardie” and eight-year-old Maddie, a “beardie-poodle” mix. Both have thick, long, wavy hair which requires grooming a couple of times a year.
Williams, a retired teacher from southern California, lives on Lake Vermilion, though she is planning a move to a newly-renovated house in Soudan. She spent childhood summers at a camp in northwestern Ontario, often canoeing in the wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park.
“If Moxie was a human, she would be a camp counselor,” said Williams. “She’s happy, she’s a bit ditzy, and often lacks common sense.”
Despite her unexpected disappearance, the dog normally isn’t a wanderer, according to Williams. Though often on alert for any deer that might wander through their wooded yard, Moxie always stays close to her house, Williams said.
An apparent close call
After finding Moxie in the deer stand, it took Halloran some time to convince Williams that her dog was really up in a tree. The stand had a homemade ladder-type stairs leading upward, with steps not quite as vertical as a ladder and a little wider, but something a dog would not normally want to navigate.
Halloran eventually convinced Williams to come and look, and as soon as Moxie saw Williams, she came bounding down the ladder.
With the fresh snow, it was apparent why it was that Moxie had opted to climb into the stand. Halloran noted several sets of large canine tracks, circling round the base of the tree.
Moxie had a deep wound on the top of her head, and a smaller wound below her chin, suggesting something with a large mouth had bitten her around the head. A quick trip to the Ely vet showed Moxie was in good shape otherwise and the wound did not require stitches, though Williams said they expect to find some more wounds once she gets groomed. The dog has thick hair and an undercoat, and this would have protected her somewhat.
But the dog’s instincts helped, too.
“People don’t give dogs enough credit,” said Halloran. “This dog knew she was in danger. This could have been a fatal attack had she not got up in that tree stand.”
Williams was amazed that Moxie was able to escape whatever attacked her.
“I didn’t think she had much common sense,” she said. “But she saved her own life.”
Halloran figured there were tracks from two or three large canids around the base of the tree stand.
Moxie quickly settled into life back at home. She was hungry and thirsty, and got treated to part of a pork chop along with her regular kibble. Then she curled up in her crate and went to sleep. By the next day she was back to her usual self, Williams said. She was also heading back to the groomer, this time on a sturdy leash, to get her summer haircut.
Williams also wants to thank all those who helped search for the dog in the area.
Halloran is now without a drone, since it crashed into trees due to the high winds during the search for Moxie. Halloran, who is disabled and was recently diagnosed as autistic, is hoping to raise enough money to buy a new drone, probably a used model, he can use for similar searches, perhaps even one with thermal-imaging capabilities. He and his wife had two dogs die in 2022, and he understands the pain of losing such companions. Halloran, who lives in Virginia, is a former Hells Angel, but quit the club before news of the criminal activities of the Eveleth club were widely reported. After quitting, club members came to his home, tried to steal his motorcycle, and threatened him with violence.
“I realized I wasn’t the same as them,” he said. “We didn’t have the same goals. Those guys would never waste a second of a day to help someone else.”
“You can change,” he said. “You can walk away from that kind of life.”
Anyone interested in donating to Halloran’s drone fund can contact the Timberjay for more information.