A dog on the run for 13 days in and around the mountain town of Frisco, who dodged high-speed vehicles while crossing Interstate 70 multiple times, was finally rescued safely last month. Though it wasn’t one of Summit Lost Pet Rescue’s longest rescue missions, it was one of the more difficult.
Thyme, a small shepherd mix (close in size to an Australian shepherd), had recently been relinquished by her owner and taken in by a good samaritan in Summit County who agreed to find her a new home. Thyme had only been with her foster for a few days when she bolted from the man’s workplace in Frisco. It was 9:30 p.m. and already dark.
When there was no sign of Thyme by the next morning, the foster called Summit Lost Pet Rescue for help. It’s like a traditional search and rescue team, but for lost and missing four-legged-animals instead of people. In the five years since the nonprofit was founded, the group has found and reunited almost 1,200 animals with their humans. The large majority have been dogs (more than 900) and cats, but there have been a few horses, donkeys and llamas, a parrot, snake and turtle, too.
Summit Lost Pet Rescue volunteers quickly organized a mission to find Thyme. They posted bright neon signs around the county:
Lost dog. Husky/GSD Mix. Do not chase. Call 970-423-5701.
“The thing most people don’t understand is that when a pet is lost, they go into ‘fight or flight’ mode,” said Melissa Davis, a full-time mom who lives in Dillon and ran her own event management company before co-founding Summit Lost Pet Rescue, as she explained why calling for and chasing after a lost pet is not effective. “They will evade people and they will even run from their owner.”
Soon, the calls began pouring in. Thyme was running on the rec path toward Breckenridge. She was on the rec path near Dillon. She was in Silverthorne. She was 8 miles west of Frisco, near Copper Mountain. People called to report Thyme had crossed I-70, Colorado 9 south toward Breckenridge, and the Dillon Dam Road.
Thyme had a history of running, but the knowledge she was crossing dangerous roads and regularly running along I-70 had the team on edge.
With so many sightings, it wasn’t long before volunteers were able to get eyes on Thyme themselves. She was always on the run, but seen repeatedly along the rec path between her foster’s workplace in Frisco and the Dillon dam. The team was able to get Thyme to pause long enough to toss her treats. She would accept the food, but never get close.
“She remained very, very elusive and was extremely intelligent,” said Greg Shoenfeld, who joined the group when he moved back to Summit County last year. “She had no desire to come within a distance that would allow us to catch her.”
One of the key tools the group uses on rescue missions are known as scent stations. These are items with a scent on them that is familiar to the animal, such as its bed or its human’s dirty T-shirts or pillowcases, that are placed where the animal was last seen or maybe at the trailhead of the trail where the dog disappeared (dogs often return to the trailhead in search of their owner), which creates a safe space for the animal to return to.
In Thyme’s case, the search team decided to set up a scent station where she first accepted food from volunteers, in the woods between Dillon Dam Road and the rec path that runs along the northwestern side of Dillon Reservoir, not far from the Heaton Bay Campground. It’s a busy area, with local commuters passing by, campers pulling in and out and paddleboarders in search of access to the water all driving nearby. The rec path is a constant stream of pedestrians, runners, cyclists and families of tourists on e-bikes.
The group set up a trap and trail cameras near the scent station. The trap — essentially, a cage that will close automatically behind the animal once it has entered — is baited with food to lure the dog inside. The rescue team uses trail cameras to monitor the trap. Volunteers check the camera every hour, 24 hours a day, to check whether the animal or wildlife has entered.
“(Our goal is) that no animal will be in there for more than 30 minutes,” said Brandon Ciullo, who cofounded the nonprofit with Davis.
How the pet rescue started
You could say Ciullo laid the foundation that built the community that led to the founding of Summit Lost Pet Rescue when he started the Facebook page, Summit County Loves Their Pets, about a decade ago, to help a friend find their lost dog. The page quickly gained an avid following. Folks used it to post funny and cute photos of their pets. Grieving families posted photos of furry friends that had passed away. It was a page where dog and animal lovers asked questions, shared information and celebrated their love of animals.
“That became the fun, positive, pet page in Summit County,” Davis said.
It also became the place where people posted missing pets — and where others in the group would volunteer to help search. Ciullo and Davis volunteered frequently, but didn’t meet in person until 2019. A woman from Tennessee had been driving through Colorado on I-70 when she was involved in a car accident on Vail Pass and was taken to the hospital. Her beloved brown Chihuahua, Outlaw, disappeared into the high elevation forests that flank the interstate.
Ciullo and Davis were among the team that searched for the tiny dog for two long and stressful weeks before they were finally able to reunite Outlaw with his human, who had returned home from the hospital and flew back for a tearful reunion at Denver International Airport. This is when the idea for the nonprofit took shape.
Ciullo, who works as a restaurant server, is easily recognizable with his New York accent, cropped brown hair, easy smile and his pack of four dogs (which goes with him almost everywhere). He began volunteering for Summit County Search and Rescue and its underwater dive team shortly after he moved to the county 15 years ago. But he says rescuing lost pets is his calling.
“This is what I was born to do,” he said. “This is what I was meant to do.”
Running the nonprofit often requires long and arduous work weeks.
Davis laughed when asked to estimate an average work week. “We’re basically on call from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week,” she said. “It’s literally like three full-time jobs.”
If there’s a trap, they’ll work overnight. Ciullo will sleep nearby, so he can respond quickly, if needed.
It’s exhausting and emotional work. There is the disappointment of unsuccessful missions and the pain of those where the beloved animal is found dead. Heartwarming reunions might make the news, but it’s not the reason Ciullo, Davis and their team do what they do. Even stray and relinquished animals, like Thyme, deserve to be rescued.
“How can you not help an animal in need — whether it has a family or not?” Davis asked. “You’re saving a life. You’re saving a soul.”
“We do it for the dogs,” Ciullo agreed. “I’m physically saving the dog’s life — that’s really what it comes down to.”
Built on the commitment of volunteers
They are quick to defer any attention and praise they receive for their work to their team of volunteers.
“We would be nothing without our volunteers, who will go out at all hours of the day and night to help rescue a pet,” Davis said.
“We’re a very diverse group of volunteers, but we all share a common mission around rescuing these animals,” Shoenfeld said. He estimated more than 20 volunteers were among the team searching daily for Thyme, adding that the dog gained a fan following on social media that was rooting for her safe return.
“Thyme’s rescue engaged a lot of people,” said Chris Becker, a Silverthorne resident who has volunteered with the group for more than two years. “I think part of it was because of how visible Thyme was … and that she was given up by her owner.”
On the eighth day of the mission, the team received a report that Thyme had crossed I-70 again. She was limping. The group could only assume she’d been hit by a car. The urgency of the rescue increased.
“We went from seeing her all over the place to seeing her on the Dam Road or by (the foster’s workplace),” Becker explained. “Her behavior changed and we changed our strategy.”
Though Thyme had approached the trap numerous times, she refused to enter. Her foster came every evening and cooked salmon nearby. The team used steak and bacon to bait the trap. Nothing worked. So, they focused on trying to earn her trust. They would sit with their back to her and almost sing to her while tossing her treats. She came closer, but never close enough.
LEFT: Summit Lost Pet Rescue volunteer Greg Shoenfeld lays on his belly and extends a treat to Thyme, a shepherd mix who escaped from her foster home and was on the run for 13 days. RIGHT: Thyme would sometimes get close enough to take food from Schoenfeld, but always ran away. (Provided photos)
Then one night, Becker brought peanut butter and lay down near Thyme. At one point, she licked peanut butter off his hand but “anytime I made any movement to grab her, she would startle and go into the woods,” he said. As the clock neared midnight, Becker stood up to go home.
“Before I left, I baited the trap with peanut butter,” he said. “It sounds funny, but I said, ‘Bye, Thyme. It’s time to go in the trap now.’”
Becker climbed into his silver Toyota RAV4 and drove toward home. He hadn’t made it 2 miles before he got the call: Thyme was in the trap. He couldn’t believe it. He turned around and headed back to the trap. There was Thyme, barking and howling inside.
Soon, others arrived and they loaded Thyme — still in the trap — into a truck and drove to a nearby house where they placed the cage inside a closed garage before releasing her. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Thyme seemed to do the same.
For almost two weeks, she had been on the run, always at an “athletic ready,” Becker said. “The first time I saw her sit was in that garage.”
A veterinarian determined Thyme had a dislocated hip, likely the result of being hit by a car. She has since had surgery and is recovering at the Summit County Animal Shelter, where Thyme will be cared for until she is adopted again.
“It would be really sweet if you had … a reunion with tears and all that, but in this particular case, what I saw was a beautiful dog … that was really going to struggle to stay alive on its own,” Shoenfeld said. “Just being able to save her and ensure she has an opportunity for a long life, and hopefully the opportunity to find and bring joy to another family, honestly that’s all the reward I need.”
Tips for keeping your dog safe
When asked what top tips they’d offer for folks adventuring in the high country with their pets, Ciullo, Davis, Shoenfeld and Becker all answer without hesitation: leash your dog.
“Even if they’re obedient at home and have good recall, it’s different when they get in the mountains,” Davis said. “They chase wildlife. Their hunting instincts kick in. They forget their owners and they get lost in the backcountry.”
There are as many hazards for dogs in the high country as there are for humans — maybe more, if you consider that dogs don’t have the same knowledge we have. Dogs might chase a marmot or a pika and get cliffed out, stranded in a place where they can neither go up or down. Dogs fall into old and abandoned mine shafts.
It’s not uncommon for search and rescue teams in Colorado to get calls to rescue dogs that are physically injured or unable to make it off the mountain or the trail, Ciullo said.
Use a leash and a collar. Update your animal’s identification tag and its microchip when you change numbers or move. Put life jackets on your pets when on water and know their physical capabilities and limitations as you would your human child, he said.
Get in the habit of having your dog harnessed and leashed when traveling in the car. Often, they jump out of the car — at the gas station, hotel or trailhead — and take off before their human can get them on a leash.
“How your dog behaves away from home is different than how they behave at home,” Shoenfeld said. “A lot of missing cases originate at or near a car.”
Case in point: Just a few days after Thyme was found, Summit Lost Pet Rescue was called to search for a terrier named Scooter that went missing after he jumped out of a moving vehicle.
“Love your dog and have adventures,” Ciullo said. “But enjoy the companionship of your pet responsibly.”