A Colorado hiker who had been missing for months was recently found dead. His faithful dog stood by his body all this time and managed to survive despite the hardships.
Rich Moore, 71, and his 14-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Finny, had been missing since Aug. 19 when they failed to return from a trip to the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. Moore planned to reach the 12,500-foot Blackhead Peak, which is about 20 miles from where he lived in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
After search and rescue teams spent nearly 2,000 hours looking for Moore, a hunter spotted the man’s body and a white dog in the Lower Blanco drainage basin more than two months later on Oct. 30, Sheriff Mike Le Roux said, as quoted by The Washington post.
The hunter alerted authorities and search and rescue teams were able to locate, recover and identify Moore’s body on Oct. 31, the sheriff’s office said. The rescue confirmed in a November 7 Facebook post that Moore was found dead while Finney was alive.
Moore died of hypothermia. Hunt, who noted it was not a homicide, added that an autopsy was not performed due to the condition of the body.
“He went up to the walking area, but it looks like he’s disoriented,” Hunt said. “Although the weather in Pagosa Springs was quite nice, it was quite cold in these mountains.”
Finney was transported to a veterinary clinic for evaluation and treatment and was reunited with her family, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities did not say how the dog survived for months. It is said that it ate small animals and somehow survived among cougars and bears.
Stories of dogs grieving the loss of their owner or another canine friend have been documented over the years. Although there is still no scientific literature on a dog grieving for its dead owner, a study published last year found that dogs do grieve when one of their companions dies.
Dog owners in Italy report negative changes in the behavior of a dog living in the same house as a recently deceased canine friend, saying the pets eat and play less and seek more attention.
Delinda Van-Breitin, a member of the TSAR team searching for Moore and Finney, said on Facebook that teams searched down the mountain toward where the man’s car was parked. She noted that the area is so steep that the search and rescue team has to get there by helicopter.
Hunt said it didn’t take long for the medical examiner to conclude that hypothermia killed Moore. Identifying the man was relatively easy because rescuers were able to find his backpack and identification and were able to match the clothes he was wearing in August, Hunt said.
“And of course Finney was still there for him,” he told The Washington Post.
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2023-11-15 14:25:00
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