Jeff Bohnert had given up on ever seeing his poodle-beagle mix again after he went missing in early June. Two months later, he received a message from a neighbor: People exploring a nearby cave found a dog. Could it be Abby? Doubtful, but still curious, Bonnert went to the cave near his rural home in Missouri. That’s when he saw the photo taken by one of the rescuers. “I said, ‘that’s my dog,’” Bohnert recalled Monday. Making Abby’s story even more amazing is the fact that she’s only a few weeks away from turning 14. Yet somehow, she’s managed to survive nearly 60 days alone, apparently many or all of them in a barren, dark, 58 degree Fahrenheit Cave (14 degrees Celsius). Abby and Bonnert’s other dog, Summer, do everything together, including misbehaving. On June 9, the couple left home, Bohnert recalled. It had happened before, and in the rural area near Perryville in eastern Missouri, it was generally no big deal. The dogs were running in the fields, maybe chasing something, and then going home. When Bonnert woke up the next morning, Summer came home, but Abby didn’t. “They never separate,” he said. “I thought something bad had happened. I mean, it’s big. She could just get overheated.” Bohnert posted about his missing dog on Facebook, contacted neighbors and contacted the police, but no one had seen Abby. On August 6, Gerry Keene and five other adults, along with five children, had just entered Berome Moore Cave, planning a day of exploration. One of the kids ran ahead of the group and called out to his dad, “He’s got a dog in here.” “Their dad was like, no there isn’t,” Keene said. “She was just laying there curled up in a ball,” Keene recalled. “She raised her head and looked at us, but did not respond to verbal commands. It looked like it was very close to being over.” Keene enlisted the help of another speleologist who happened to be there, Rick Haley. They knew Abby couldn’t walk the 500 feet or so back to the entrance, especially since it was through narrow passages and up a steep incline. Haley trained in cave rescues and grabbed a bag and blanket from his truck. They put the blanket in the bag and then the dog, who immediately took to the warm blanket after weeks of lying in the cold mud. However, Abby’s exit was difficult given her fragility. “It was critical not to give her any rough handling,” Haley said. In the rocky areas through small corridors, “we would carry her a short distance, put her down, then move in front of her, come back, pick her up and put her in front of us.” He described it as “a kind of jumping-frog”. Immediately after initially finding Abby, Keane briefly went to a few nearby homes to see if anyone was missing a dog. A neighbor approached Bohnert, who lives close enough to the cave site that he can see it from his home. He went there assuming it couldn’t be Abby – how could a 13-year-old dog have survived such an ordeal? To his surprise, he did, and about an hour and a half after the rescue began, he was out. One of the rescuers gave Abby a bite of beef. “It almost ate his finger off,” Keene said. Almost immediately, he began to wake up. Bohnert figures Abby ended up in the cave after falling into a sinkhole or hidden entrance. Haley said there were footprints everywhere, indicating she initially tried to get out. After that, Haley and Bohnert believe she collapsed, able to essentially live off her own fat. “I think it was just in maintenance mode,” Bohnert said. Abby normally weighs about 23 pounds, Bohnert said, but he guessed she lost half her body weight in the cave. Since her rescue, she has regained weight and started to get back the voice she probably lost barking for help. She wags her tail again, showing that she is putting the trauma behind her. “It’s amazing how it’s coming back already,” Bohnert said. “She’s acting like herself again.”
