Alaska Man Reunited With Lost Dog After 70 Days: Bella Rose Caught in Homemade Pen at Soldotna Landfill
After a 70-day search, Soldotna, Alaska resident Rufus Arroyo was reunited with his lost dog on the night of November 4. According to KTUU, Alaska's News Source, his extra-large American Bully, Bella Rose, slipped her leash outside a local veterinary clinic on August 26 and vanished into woods where bears roam. At about 9:30 p.m. on November 4, she walked into a homemade pen Arroyo had set at the Soldotna landfill and was caught safely. She is now home recovering.
Bella Rose is a chocolate-and-tan American Bully with a skittish temperament. On August 26, Arroyo's brother, who had broken his arm the week before, took her to Twin Cities Veterinary Clinic to update her shot records ahead of her second birthday. As she raced in circles around him, he let go of the leash rather than fall and injure his arm again. Bella Rose bolted across Kalifornsky Beach Road at the height of rush hour and disappeared into the trees. A lost-dog notice posted on Radio Kenai the next day described her purple buckle collar and orange training collar, with a gray leash still attached.
Arroyo, a 20-year Soldotna resident who works on call at Central Peninsula Hospital and breeds bully dogs, told KTUU the search never felt like looking for a pet: "It was just a parent looking after their kid." Sightings came in over the weeks, including one up Slikok Creek, an area known for bear activity, where she was reported sheltering under a collapsed barn.
Kenai Peninsula Animal Lovers (KPAL), a local animal group led by Kelly Griebel, lent Arroyo traps, and Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche and landfill workers also helped. Arroyo built a custom 4-by-8-foot pen with a sensitive pressure-plate trigger, laid inside it a blanket Bella Rose had used, and set it at the Soldotna landfill, watching a live camera feed from a hill above.
At about 9:30 p.m. on November 4, Bella Rose stepped cautiously into the pen, pawed at her blanket, and the trigger shut the door behind her, exactly 70 days after she ran. Arroyo said he only later took in the timing: Bella Rose's grandmother, a dog named Athena Rose, had died exactly two years earlier, on the same day and, by his account, at the same hour, a detail presented here as he recounted it.
Bella Rose is now home recovering. Arroyo told KTUU he had been crying all day and was at a loss for words, and he credited the landfill workers, Mayor Micciche and KPAL for bringing her back.
(Source: KTUU)
Source: KTUU Alaska's News Source
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国恶霸犬（资料图，非 Bella Rose 本人）。Mattías Gambetta 摄，CC BY 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。/ An American Bully (file photo, not Bella Rose). Photo by Mattías Gambetta, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
