After two weeks of close encounters and dedicated work by some Southwest Colorado locals, a dog from Phoenix who fled during Silverton’s Fourth of July fireworks display, is heading home.
Over the last two weeks, a crew of Durango and Silverton residents have tracked Konni, the 1-year-old Belgian Malinois who belongs to Dana Hite, her husband James Lowery and their son Jaxon.
Tips poured in over the last few weeks – Hite would get as many as four messages reporting sightings each day – and the puppy was finally captured by a Silverton resident Friday morning.
“Here in Phoenix, that would never happen,” Hite said, overflowing with gratitude.
She and her family were up in Silverton for a week in early July. They took with them Konni, the 50-pound black and tan puppy who joined their family last October.
The trip started with a warm welcome: an officer with the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office helped the family find a camping spot around midnight along the Animas River south of town.
Silverton’s famous fireworks show started earlier than the family expected on July 4, and they didn’t have time to put Konni in the camper. The spooked dog fled before anyone could grab her.
The camping party immediately began looking for her, but to no avail. The next morning, they posted in various community Facebook groups.
“This is not going to work,” Hite thought to herself.
A group of people, including Silverton resident Jimmy Keene II, began looking on Friday, July 5.
By Sunday night, Keene had seen no signs of Konni and thought maybe she had been swept away by the river.
“I didn’t think there was much hope,” he said.
But then on Monday, someone saw Konni on Molas Pass. Hite and her family had to leave the following day and return to work in Phoenix, but not before they plastered the area with signs asking for help locating the lost pup.
Hite cried that night, missing her dog. But driving away from Silverton the next day, that changed.
“I felt OK leaving her,” Hite said. “I just knew that she was going to be OK and be with us again.”
The sighting triggered Keene and a core group of about four other people, mostly from Durango, to spring into action.
“We set up a bunch of trail cams, and we started being able to track where she was moving during the day, during the night, (and figure out) what were her patterns,” Keene said.
By tracking Konni’s movements on the trail cameras, the group figured out the areas she mostly spent time in. They fed her, enough to keep her tempted but not full, from one location and started luring her closer and closer to a live trap set south of Molas Pass.
Wednesday night, Konni entered the trap three times. But, wanting to ensure that she would fully enter it before triggering the closure mechanism, Keene hadn’t set the trap to spring.
Thursday night, Keene set the trap to spring and was convinced he would capture Konni. But for some reason, she didn’t go near it.
“When her schedule gets changed or when she's not eating, we automatically get worried because she's been seen running in the road,” Keene said.
He and another searcher spent an hour driving U.S. Highway 550 in search of Konni. The pair was checking ditches for a carcass when they got a call that someone at a campground on Molas Pass was feeding Konni hot dogs.
Keene had a blanket with the family’s scent on it and when he got to the campground, he laid it out and started feeding Konni bits of kibble off it.
“It was probably the 15 or 20 minutes of me laying there and coaxing her in, and (eventually), you know, she was licking it off my fingers,” he said. “But I only had one shot. If I lunged, and I didn't get her, she would have been scared, and she wouldn't have trusted people again.”
When Konni was in the right spot, Keene grabbed her collar.
“Once I got her in my car and shut the door, I smiled ear to ear,” Keene said.
The crescendo was a team effort, he emphasized.
Another searcher who happened to be a veterinarian checked the dog and determined that other than some lost weight and cut up paws, Konni is in good shape.
“I kept telling Jimmy, 'I’m so, so thankful for all of you guys,” Hite said.
The family, who had planned to return to Silverton anyway to help in the search, will arrive in town early Saturday morning to retrieve Konni.
Keene, a veteran who says he is driven by a desire to give back, is quick to disperse credit among the five or so searchers who dedicated time over the last two weeks.
“I think its important as people that we contribute back to society in some way, shape or form,” he said.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
