FoCo dog survives 60 days in wilderness

Sixty days in the Wyoming wilderness had nothing on an Australian shepherd mix from Fort Collins.

Hank, Tiffany and Travis Whitsitt’s 6-year-old rescue dog, went missing in late August when the Fort Collins couple took him for a quick trip up to French Creek Campground – about 60 miles west of Laramie – for Travis’ 30th birthday.

After hearing a gunshot from a hunter, Tiffany Whitsitt said Hank went running, somehow getting through a fenced-in area and taking off into remote southern Wyoming.

The couple searched for him, and when he hadn’t come back by the next day, they printed lost posters, spreading them throughout the area and even into Laramie, where they connected with the local humane society.

Since Travis Whitsitt has family in Wyoming, his wife also said they sent some family members back up to the French Creek area with articles of their clothing, hoping Hank would catch their scent and venture back to the campground or another populated area.

“We tried to stay hopeful, but there’s a lot of coyotes and mountain lions (out there).. even bears,” Whitsitt said, adding that they’d had Hank – their only dog – for about a year and a half before he went missing.

IT'S HALLOWEEN TIME: 9 things to do this season

Their lost posters returned one result – a call from a hunter at the campground saying he thought he’d spotted Hank. It ended up being a false alarm.

About three weeks after his disappearance, Whitsitt said she and her husband came to terms with the fact that Hank wouldn’t be coming home.

And, to quell some of the sadness, they ended up getting a new puppy, another Australian shepherd named Gus.

On Monday, Larimer Humane Society called about getting Hank’s registration renewed. Whitsitt said that’s when she officially had him declared dead.

But two days later, another call came through – this time from Home Again, the company that Hank was micro-chipped through. Someone had reportedly found him walking along a highway in Centennial, Wyoming, about an hour-long drive from French Creek.

Not wanting to get her hopes up, Whitsitt said she went into the situation cautiously.

“Maybe it’s not Hank,” she said. “Maybe someone found the collar and put it on another dog.”

The man who found him ended up meeting the Whitsitts in Laramie.

And, “it was Hank,” she said, adding that she started crying as soon as she saw him.

“It’s almost as if I was seeing a ghost,” Whitsitt said. “To think your dog is gone forever and all the sudden, here he is.”

COMMUNITY: NoCo family faces unknown as open heart surgeries loom

Hank’s veterinarian ran a few tests, gave him some medication for his stomach and he had some quality time with a groomer, but, considering his 60-day adventure, Whitsitt says he’s in great shape.

It helped, she added, that Hank was a little overweight when he disappeared. He ended up losing around 20 pounds, and his veterinarian told Whitsitt that some of the test results show he must have been eating rabbits or rabbit poop.

So after about two months away, Hank is finally home in Fort Collins. And he’s back to his normal routine, Whitsitt said. Only one thing is different: he has a little brother.