Fur Rondy sled dog found after going missing for four days

INDIAN, Alaska (KTUU) - The dog of a Fur Rendezvous sled dog team has been found safe, according to volunteers with a rescue group.

Donna, an Alaskan husky, is among the shyest of musher Frank Habermann’s sled dogs. Habermann had placed 10th in the 2023 Fur Rondy sled dog races in Anchorage.

Monday, the musher was hauling 14 dogs on a custom-built trailer when there was a mishap and it crashed near a cliff along mile 105 of the Seward Highway, close to the community of Indian.

Two of the dogs went missing. One of the dogs was rescued from icy waters off of the highway. The other, Donna, was seen running towards Girdwood.

Friday night, volunteer dog trappers relayed to Alaska’s News Source that Habermann’s missing dog Donna had been found.

Wednesday morning, Donna was spotted sleeping on the porch of a cabin in Indian within miles of the trailer crash. Volunteers with the rescue group Safe Pawz installed a trap on the porch where Donna had been seen.

Friday, Safe Pawz volunteers said they had put salmon and sardines in the trap.

John Tichotsky is a sled dog handler and a friend of Habermann.

“I was contacted by Linda O’Brien and her volunteer Shelly,” Tichotsky said. “They’re like the ghostbusters of animal trapping. They’ve been involved in this before. They’ve trapped a dog that was lost at the Iditarod.”

Search and rescue volunteers strongly encouraged everyone to leave the efforts to capture Donna to them. The missing Alaskan Husky was a safe distance from the highway and rescuers didn’t want her to go towards the roadway or wander out of their reach.

There were eight people in the Indian area feeding Donna at one point, which Tichotsky says is very sweet, but he says everyone should stop feeding the dog so that she would get hungry enough to go into the trap.

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