Jaime Sylva lives in Homer and spends her days raising huskies for herself and a kennel, including 22-month-old Moonie. When the mini husky slipped through a fence opening on July 9, Sylva began a frantic search across town to find him.
“He has no concept of where he is because we only ever leave our property with him in the truck, so we go from the house to the truck and then to the beach or a walk down the hill somewhere, she said, “we don't walk directly out from our house. So his directions just aren't there.”
Sylva took to social media to ask for help, posting pictures on local Facebook page Homer Communications. Over the next few days, people joined in the search for Moonie.
Some walked through neighborhoods looking for him, while others flew drones in search for a flash of gray and white fur, all to no avail.
“I found three groups of the nicest people that were willing to come out and search at different times with me with their drones, all over town all over the hillside, all down the spit out on three different days and no one saw anything,” she said.
Sylva canvassed houses and searched the bluff overlooking the beach that goes into Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet. Someone in the neighborhood also helped her search the area. During that time, she told as many people as possible he wouldn’t attack their animals and worried if Moonie would be able to eat. Moonie is normally spoonfed and needs to take medication regularly.
“He's just the most kind, gentle angel on Earth, and so I knew he would never go after any creature for food. He just doesn't think of them as food, and I knew he was trying to get home but had no idea where he was,” she said.
Sylva finally made some progress after meeting Kenai resident Travis Smith on Monday. Smith was riding a motorbike on the beach from Anchor Point to Homer when Sylva ran into him on one of her beach searches. Smith said she asked him to keep an eye out for Moonie. As he continued riding, Smith saw a flash of white come out of the woods from the bluff.
“I turn around and say, ‘Holy crap, that's that dog,’ he said, “and so I tried to ride and catch up to this thing. And it's going just about as fast as I was on my dirt bike on three legs. And so I was calling the pound and trying to get a hold of it. And they told me it had been missing for almost a week and, like, good grief I gotta catch the thing.”
A four mile chase ensued, with Moonie zooming down the beach and Smith keeping him from disappearing into the woods. He said Moonie eventually stopped and layed down while Smith waited for Sylva and her family to show up.
But Moonie was in bad shape. Sylva said he had porcupine quills on his face and leg and scratches all over his body. The pads on his feet were worn down. And on top of everything else, he had a broken leg.
“I just was so overcome and seeing him with his little quills in his lip and on his paw and his arm was bleeding pretty bad, and it was so heartbreaking,” Sylva said, “but at the same time, it's such a happy moment that I knew we could get him home safe now. And everything else is fixable”
Sylva’s niece and a friend, Laci King and Bradley Bordner, took Moonie to the Kenai Veterinary Hospital, where he had cuts cleaned and porcupine quills removed. But, Moonie needed emergency surgery in Anchorage for his broken leg. The procedure would cost more than $7000 and needed to be paid in full before they could operate on Moonie.
Sylva took to social media again and asked the community for help, insisting she would pay everyone back. She set up a GoFundMe, which surpassed its goal within a day, with many people donating anonymously or refusing to be paid back.
Because there would be too much of a delay to access the funds, Pat Aherns volunteered to pay for the procedure up front. Moonie had a long surgery Thursday to put a plate on his broken leg and is making a steady recovery.
Sylva said she was incredibly touched by the community’s support.
“I'm kind of a hermit. And so for all of these people to, to not only step up, to look for him, but to step up to financially help them as well — and I am a stranger to 99% of these people — they'll never be able to know how much that means,” she said, “and I know that this story would have been very different if I lived anywhere else.”
She said the help has been especially meaningful. Sylva found out her brother died unexpectedly the same day Moonie went missing.
“It was pretty, pretty devastating, and so to have Moonie not only come back, but receive such kindness from everybody has totally saved us from a very dark period.”
As of Friday afternoon, Moonie had a successful surgery and is heading back home to Sylva.
Correction: This story was updated on July 22, 2024 to correct Moonie's age. The original version of the story incorrectly stated Moonie's age as 16 months old at the time of publishing.
