Skip to content

Sled dog Louie returns home

Canine escapee captured after nine days on the lam
Louie
Scott Robarts at home with Louie, the lab-husky mix who spent night nights alone in the backcountry.

After spending nine nights running feral in the North Shore backcountry and prompting a herculean search effort, a former Whistler sled dog is back home with his owners in North Vancouver.

Louie, a lab-husky mix, slipped his collar and bolted in Princess Park on March 13. After long hours searching and sleepless nights spent listening to Louie howl and bark from the edge of Grouse Mountain, owner Scott Robarts found him Saturday morning.

"We got him," Robarts said on Monday, "The vet said he's fine. He's got some chafing on his legs but otherwise he's good. He lost about 10 pounds but I would say he's not as emaciated as we thought he would be."

Dozens of volunteers came out to help find Louie over the nine days he was missing and social media alerts about him spread into the thousands. Beyond the volunteer dog trackers and North Shore Rescue members who came out to search, Robarts also enlisted the help of Jaime Hargreaves Louie's former owner, who came down from Whistler, bringing Louie's former sled dog team with her and a favourite stew, hoping the familiar smells would draw him out of hiding. Robarts put Louie's crate off trail near the Grouse Grind on Friday night and was preparing to bait a live trap on Saturday morning. When he arrived with the bait, there was Louie, having a rest in his kennel.

Robarts fought the urge to dash over to him, knowing that Louie had gone feral.

"I just wanted to rush over there and put his collar on and rush him home but I dragged it out for probably about 30 minutes, this process of approaching him because I didn't want to frighten him off. What was going through my head was 'OK, I can't screw this up'," he said. "He's probably slippery as an eel if he wants to be and if I scare him, he'll

bolt and then we're back at square one."

Robarts has come away from the experience with an even warmer view of his North Shore neighbours.

"A whole bunch of people from the community that we didn't even know before helped with this. One of the amazing lessons that we'll take away from this is what kind of community we live in. People cared so much."

To those who might lose their dog in the backcountry, Robarts has some advice: "If your dog runs off and you start to worry about it, it's important to stay calm because the dogs sense that."