This is an absolutely AMAZING story that my Dad just called and shared with me that i thought you all would enjoy reading.

I just got off the phone with my father. My dad's an orthodontist and his lab man (Danny) does some taxidermy on the side. Anyways, Danny is an avid hunter and simply just LOVES to hunt. Well lately he's been coyote hunting. Now his version of coyote hunting is sitting on his back porch drinking coffee while he watches his coyote bait 650 yards down in his back field. Well, tonight after work, Danny went home and sat on his back porch as usual. About 20 minutes after he sat down he noticed something moving out of the woods towards his bait. He's pulls out his spotting spot and it's a descent sized coyote. He starts getting ready to make the 650 yard shot... gets his gun up on the rest... takes the scope covers off... gets steady... but when he leans down to look through the scope he notices another coyote coming out off the woods. AWESOME... two coyotes... he'll make a shot and before the other coyote figures out where it came from, he'll line him up and drop him... So he looks back through his spotting scope because he wants to see which ones bigger and he'll shoot that one first. Only when he looks through the spotting scope he notices that the coyote is unusually dark in color and much bigger then the other coyote. Before he figures out what's going on the two coyotes starting going at it with each other... The bigger coyote fights off the smaller one and it goes running back into the woods. Now this is fairly strange for a coyote to actually send the other one running so he looks back through his spotting scope and notices that the coyote that's still there eating the bait isn't a coyote at all... it has a collar on. So Danny hops on his snowmobile and rides down to his bait... As Danny gets closer he realizes how bad of shape this dog is in. The dog is VERY skittish and won't let Danny within 10ft of him. The dog is cut up, bleeding from new wounds and old, 15 - 20lbs underweight and looks like it's on the brink of death. So Danny rides back to his house and grabs some cheese and hamburger and heads back to see if he can coax the dog to follow him home. Well after about 15 - 20 minutes Danny gains the dog's trust and realizes that the dog is wearing a radio collar with dog tags. Danny gets the dog back to his house and puts him in his heated garage with a little bit of dog food and calls the number on the dog tag.

He begins to explain the situation to the owner( a woman ) and she immediately breaks down crying and hands the phone to her husband. The man is bewildered and asks Danny where he lives? Danny tells the man he lives in Presque Isle, and the man (who also lives in Presque Isle) says "well... sir i think your mistaken" I don't think you have my dog. Danny explains he took the dog tags right off the collar so the man decides to come over and see. Danny at this point is confused why the man would doubt he had his dog but agrees and tells him to come directly over.

Well to make a long story short the mans shows up... is AMAZED to find his dog... sheds a few tears and explains that he had taken his three Mountain Curs??? coyote hunting up to Clayton Lake (47 MILES from Presque Isle) three weeks ago. Three of his dogs went off chasing a coyote and only two returned... the man spent the entire weekend searching for his lost dog but after finding copious amount of blood and not receiving any radio signals, gave up the search and went home. It is now almost three weeks later this dog shows up on Danny's Coyote bait 5 miles from home.

The most amazing part of this story isn't only that the dog travel some 40+ miles straight towards home but that it did so during a Maine winter when they've received over 150" of snowfall. I don't know how many of you have tried walking 100ft through deep snow but for a dog to travel over 40 miles chest deep in snow while surviving what looked to be numerous coyote attacks is nothing short of a miracle. I never cease to be amazed at how amazing of a creation dogs really are.