Dia has had quite a week. The three-year-old Rhodesian ridgeback cross went missing on Saturday, July 16 and was not found until July 23.
It’s the details of her time in between though that are the stuff of a Disney movie.
The day she went missing was one of her first in Squamish with her new owner, Morgan Blakley.
She had been adopted two days previous from Vancouver Island when Blakley took her for a hike up the Sea to Summit Trail. She slipped her collar on the hike and the next phase of her adventure began.
From what Blakley can piece together from witness accounts, Dia made her way down the trail and was hit by a car shortly after she went missing.
“We looked all weekend. With no sightings, we assumed the worst,” Blakley recalled in an email to The Squamish Chief on Tuesday.
On July 23, a report came in that Dia was seen on a cliff on the Stawamus Chief.
“I was skeptical that it was Dia,” Blakley said.
But it was his dog. Blakley, a mountain climber, went to the site and rescued her himself.
“The ledge is above a large overhang at the very south edge of the apron,” he said in a posted update on Facebook.
“To get her, I hiked up the Apron descent route and veered north just under Broadway Ledge. I set up a tree anchor and rappelled down to Dia.
“I then put her in my rope bag and slung that over my shoulder and hauled us both up the rope, about 20 feet.”
Being able to rescue the dog was satisfying, Blakley said.
“It was satisfying being able to use those skills to rescue Dia, and this proves that everyone should climb,” he said.
It appears Dia was bitten by a coyote and in her effort to escape she fell onto the cliff, Blakley surmises.
Dia was taken to the vet for an assessment and had surgery Wednesday to fix a few soft-tissue injuries.
“Dia is doing great,” Blakley said.
“Considering she was hit by a car, alone in the woods for a week, and then fell down a cliff to a ledge she did great. Nothing broken, but some moderate soft-tissue injuries and some infection.” No word on when Dia will be back out on the hiking trail.
