One stray dog has been roaming the Alaskan wilderness for nearly two months.
A German shepherd-husky mix named Jackie, who is believed to be 2 to 3 years old, was facing possible euthanasia in an overfilled Los Angeles County animal shelter. But days before the Los Angeles wildfires were ablaze in early January, she was transported from the shelter and safely taken to Juneau, Alaska.
There, she was in a foster home until she was adopted on Saturday, Feb. 15. The next day, she slipped out of her collar and ran off, according to a Juneau Animal Rescue (JAR) Facebook post. The rescue organization asked people to call them if she was spotted.
It has been seven weeks and Jackie is still roaming the Alaska wilderness. She has dodged JAR’s traps that had food to entice her — including cheeseburgers, dog food, cat food and beef dumplings, per KTOO.
Mike Mazouch, JAR animal control and protection director, confirmed to PEOPLE that Jackie “is becoming more comfortable with [JAR employees] being in her habitat.” He added that “she hasn’t been straying too far from her nesting area.”
“She gets fed every night from either an Animal Control Officer or some volunteers that have been with her since the trip from Los Angeles,” Mazouch said in a statement. “She routinely beds down near us and has become less elusive over the last few weeks and is observed in close vicinity to us every night.”
Jackie has been spotted in a forested area that has black bears, who are beginning to reemerge from hibernation, causing her to face new dangers, as well as the dangers of the forest’s close proximity to a busy road.
“Maybe this is what she wants, is to be free and feral like this,” Juneau animal control officer Thom Young-Bayer said, per the Associated Press. “It’s not a safe way for her to live here.”
Thom has also been searching for Jackie in his free time with his wife, Skylar. Jackie no longer flees from Thom, and more recently, he has encountered her every time he sets out for her.
Meanwhile, Skylar, an animal rescue volunteer, helped arrange for Jackie and two other dogs to be transferred to Juneau to avoid the risk of being euthanized.
The three dogs were named to be euthanized to make room for the influx of animals that were impacted by the L.A. wildfires.
JAR director Rick Driscoll explained that if people see her roaming around, they should report it to them.
“She’s not going to just walk up to you and let you put a collar or a leash on her. So it’s best if they just report it to us,” Driscoll told KTOO. “She’s the biggest thing that’s on my mind.”
Mazouch said the efforts to capture her a “battle of wills,” per KTOO. “She is not willing to give up, and we’re not willing to give up, either.” He also noted that Jackie didn’t have much time to bond with her new owner, Eulaysia Rayne Bostrack, before she ran away.
Bostrack, a Los Angeles native, told KTOO she felt a personal connection to Jackie. “I know about the fires and the life of the stray dogs down there,” she said. “I’ve seen it all, so I know what she’s been through.”
Bostrack has seen Jackie twice since she first went missing, and confessed that both times she broke down. “We didn’t get too much time with her.”
