Marley is one well-traveled collie.
She got out of her downtown Bayfield yard on Jan. 9 when a gate didn’t shut properly.
She’s always been skittish of other people, and owner Missy Sarnow thinks Marley just got flustered and ran north across U.S. Highway 160, then past Dove Ranch and Bayfield Cemetery. Sarnow, her husband, Andre, and friends immediately got in their cars and started searching for her. Responding to fliers and Sarnow’s posts on Facebook, people called and said they had seen the dog, but they couldn’t get the shy pooch to come close enough to catch her.
Then the calls started coming from Bear Creek and Forest Lakes, even further north on County Road 501.
Then there had been no calls for the past week or so, and Sarnow said she feared for the worst. She told their daughters Marley might not be coming home.
On Jan. 21, though, she got a surprising call. Rancher Dave Guilliams of Pagosa Springs had seen a skinny collie near his front porch, and he lured her into the house with bologna.
Marley has a tag, and he called Sarnow. Guilliams lives near Williams Reservoir, 18 miles north of Pagosa Springs. He estimates she traveled about 30 miles from Forest Lakes to his ranch, through some pretty hard country and freezing cold at night.
“She is skin and bones,” Sarnow said, but other than that, the 3-year-old dog is healthy. Marley probably survived lows in the teens at night because of her thick coat, she guessed.
Guilliams told her he never bothered getting tags for his dogs on his ranch, but he has become a believer and is getting them now.
“I just wanted to thank everybody who called and looked,” Sarnow said. One friend of hers said a 4-year-old child saw a flier and was trying to go out and find her dog.
“It was so nice,” she said.
Their daughters are thrilled Marley is back home.
She and her husband also are fixing their gate to prevent any further escapes.
