Sarabi, the Iditarod sled dog who had been missing for nearly a month, is headed home.
The lost dog of musher Laura Allaway was recovered late Monday night near the United Protestant Presbyterian Church in Palmer, about 50 miles from where she escaped from handlers in South Anchorage March 21. Sarabi had been taken to Anchorage after being dropped while Allaway worked her way along the Iditarod Trail toward Nome.
"I'm going to hug her for 10 minutes straight," Allaway said by phone Monday night of what she plans to do when she's finally reunited with her dog.
Allaway, who finished 46th in the 2015 Iditarod, got word that her 3-year-old dog had been caught around 9:45 p.m. Monday, days after searchers confirmed that Sarabi had been spotted close to the city of Palmer. It came on the heels of another confirmed sighting at mile 94 of the Glenn Highway earlier this month, around 100 miles north of where she first got loose.
In Palmer, Sarabi had been spotted by locals living near the church, who contacted searchers. Morgan Hall, who helped with the Valley search effort, said they set a trap in the woods between the downtown Palmer church and the pastor's home. In the trap they left food -- chicken and liverwurst -- to draw the dog closer.
Searchers initially didn't set the trap, she said, but instead wanted Sarabi to get comfortable with the mechanism. They even set up a camera to see if she went in and out of it -- and she did, Hall said, at one point even sleeping in it.
After days of watching her grow comfortable with the trap, Hall decided Monday would be the night to catch her. At around 8:30 p.m. Hall released the mechanism that would finally lock the trap. An hour later, Sarabi wandered over. Hall watched as the dog poked around the wire trap, not immediately setting it off. For a moment, she said she was worried it wouldn't work. Then it quickly latched shut.
"We got her. We got her safe. She'll be home safe," Hall said Monday night. "That's all that matters."
Allaway said that at first, the dog growled and appeared apprehensive toward strangers, but as soon as she reunited with handlers she returned to her regular self. Allaway said Sarabi appears to be at a healthy weight, with no ribs showing. Her only apparent injury was a porcupine quill under the eye, which Hall said her husband was able to easily remove Monday night.
Hall said after the lengthy search effort, she's being extra careful not to lose the dog. She and her husband made sure to add extra zip-ties to the wire crate as they loaded Sarabi out of the car into the garage in at their Chugiak home. During a phone interview Monday night, Sarabi, now safely restrained in the garage, was heard howling in the background.
"She wants to go back outside," Hall joked.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hall was driving Sarabi to Trailbreaker Kennels to be reunited with her teammates. Allaway still has no idea how the dog could have made it all the way to Palmer and beyond. But she was relieved that her dog was secured and safe.
"I was so scared for her. It needs to end in a happy way," Allaway said. "And now, officially, the posters can come down."