by Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian
Thursday April 16, 2009, 9:40 PM
Before going missing for nine months in southern Oregon, Leo spent a day at the beach with his owners, Marisa Davis and Jason McNichols. Leo was reunited with them Thursday.
Nine months and $2,000 after he disappeared in the wilds of southern Oregon, Leo the border collie is heading home to Northeast Portland.
He may appear a bit wolf-like now, shaggy and a wild look in the eye. But he was a well-groomed 2-year-old herding dog last Fourth of July weekend, when Jason McNichols, 30, and fiancee Marisa Davis, 29, left him with friends while they rafted for an hour on the Rogue River.
Agility-course trained and keen at playing Frisbee, Leo had never given the couple a reason to worry. But on that summer afternoon, he suddenly bolted when a friend pulled up to the Graves Creek boat landing to await McNichols and Davis.
"We were heartbroken," said McNichols.
The pair posted lost-dog fliers in Galice, the closest hamlet, six miles upriver, and in other towns to the north, where they were camped. Given Leo's distinctive brown, white and black coloring, they figured it wouldn't be long before someone spotted the 50-pound pup. But despite days spent hiking the area during her summer break from teaching at a Beaverton middle school, Davis couldn't find Leo.
So McNichols hired Longview, Wash., tracker Harry Oakes, whose corpse-sniffing dog tipped off investigators seven years ago to the buried remains of two murdered girls in the yard of convicted killer Ward Weaver.
The search dog pointed out one of Leo's trails, McNichols said, suggesting that the dog had at least survived a week on his own. But after no more news for the next eight months, there came Nanette Martin's phone call in early April.
On a break during a motorcycle ride through Galice, Martin spotted one of the Leo fliers. She recognized him at once as a stray that appeared now and then on her property 25 miles south of Galice in Wilderville.
"And when I saw the sign I thought, 'Oh my God, that's that lost dog,'" Martin said.
Turns out, Wilderville residents had been seeing the border collie with a patterned collar darting around town since November. Skittish around humans, he wandered through the woods, pilfering cat food.
"Everybody saw him but nobody could get close to him," Martin said.
After the call, McNichols and Davis took last Friday off and drove south to resume the search. More than once, they spotted Leo at a distance but he would flee. Finally, McNichols called Bug's Inc., a pest control company in Grants Pass that uses cages to trap cougars. He and Davis had to return to Portland, but on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Martin helped workers set a trap for Leo on a neighbor's property.
Finally, on Wednesday night, Martin called McNichols and asked if he wanted to speak with Leo, who sat nearby, scared but wagging his tail. Tempted by a can of cat food, dog kibble and a breast of chicken from Albertsons, the dog had walked into the cage.
Thursday morning, McNichols and Davis were reunited with Leo. Shaggy and covered in ticks, he seemed to be the pet the couple had lost.
Before heading for their home in the Rocky Butte area of Portland, they took Leo to the Wilderville Store to formally introduce residents to the dog who wandered through the area all those months.
"It's such a happy ending," a giddy Martin said Thursday afternoon.
McNichols agreed.
"Nine months later, and he's fine," he said, after taking the dog to a Eugene vet for a checkup. "All muscle. He only lost three pounds in the whole ordeal. We can't wait to get him home."
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