{"id":1716,"date":"2020-05-19T16:28:25","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T20:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rescuedoggames.com\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2020-05-19T16:31:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T20:31:16","slug":"do-we-choose-our-dogs-or-do-they-choose-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rescuedoggames.com\/do-we-choose-our-dogs-or-do-they-choose-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Choose Our Dogs or Do They Choose Us?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Adopted dog takes 97-day walk back to foster mom<\/h1>\n
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Author:<\/span> Boyd Huppert<\/div>\n
Published:<\/span> 4:20 PM EDT May 17, 2020<\/div>\n

ST PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Zelda, a six-year-old German shepherd mix, may not have a pedigree. But no one can question her sense of direction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The skittish mutt found her way back to her old neighborhood in St. Paul, after being adopted by a family in Chanhassen, nearly 30 miles away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe definitely has some superpowers, Seneca Krueger, who fostered Zelda, says with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to figure out what other things she can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Zelda\u2019s journey began much earlier, when she arrived at <\/span>Wags & Whisker, a Twin Cities animal rescue<\/a>, from an overflowing shelter in Texas.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Wags & Whiskers selected Krueger to foster Zelda. Krueger was familiar with fostering. By her estimate, she\u2019d taken between 30 and 40 dogs into her home previously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Zelda stayed with Krueger 7 months \u2013 much of that time scared of her own shadow. Krueger says Zelda didn\u2019t wag her tail for two months and took four months to bark, or make any other dog sounds. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But by January she\u2019d made enough progress to be adopted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A family in Chanhassen stepped up to take Zelda in permanently. Or so, everyone thought, including Krueger, who found herself missing Zelda more than she expected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOut of 30, 40 foster dogs, what happens is you love them, and then you let them go and you take the next one,\u201d Krueger says. \u201cAnd with Zelda, I adopted her out and spent three days crying. I felt like I had lost my dog.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meantime, Chanhassen’s newest resident apparently wasn’t digging her new scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think it was maybe 10 days, and she was gone,\u201d Krueger says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Notified of Zelda\u2019s escape, Krueger immediately joined the search for the runaway.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThree times a week I was out for four or five hours,\u201d she said. \u201cThe days where it was 30 below were the days I was most worried about her. I was out all day trying to find her so that she could be warm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Zelda was on the move. Social media posts yielded dozens of sightings, from Chanhassen all the way to Orono, north of then-frozen lake Minnetonka.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI never believed I wouldn\u2019t find her,\u201d Krueger says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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but she needed help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger enlisted the services of Niki Taylor and Kathy Brunner with START for Dogs,<\/a> a lost pet all-volunteer tracking organization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Niki Taylor and Kathy Brunner joined the hunt, posting flyers and following leads, which, after weeks of searching, suddenly went cold.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Brunner, especially, feared the worst. \u201cWe thought she could be in the lake and didn\u2019t make it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then 51 days after the last sighting, someone captured a photo through a car window of a German shepherd mix walking along St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger was elated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe START team got ahold of me and said, \u2018Hey, look at this.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Oh! It\u2019s her!\u201d Krueger recounted. \u00a0\u201cI think I put 127 flyers in that neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And why was she willing to extend the effort for a dog for whom she was no longer responsible? \u201cBecause I love her,\u201d Krueger says. \u201cAnd I really believed that she was trying to find me, and I wanted to make sure she didn\u2019t have to travel the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger\u2019s searching continued as multiple social media sightings showed Zelda had crossed the Mississippi River and had found her way back to St. Paul.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then, someone snapped a picture of, what appeared to be Zelda, two blocks from Krueger\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI couldn\u2019t sit still,\u201d Krueger says. \u201cI was just out – I would walk for an hour and come back and see if she was here, and immediately, back out for another hour.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then, earlier this month – a couple miles from Krueger\u2019s house – Zelda wandered into an alley behind the home of Mike and Susan Willis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Zelda had chosen a fortuitous path.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI just started feeding her right away,\u201d Susan Willis says with a smile, \u201cbecause that\u2019s what Susan\u2019s do. They feed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And sure enough, Susan\u2019s dinners kept bringing Zelda back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For Taylor and Brunner, it was a major break. They set up a trail camera and captured overnight images of the hungry visitor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAnd I was thinking that\u2019s her, that\u2019s got to be her big fluffy tail,\u201d Taylor says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The next night, Willis\u2019 food was placed inside a trap set up by Taylor and Brunner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger was sleeping on the couch with her clothes on ready to roll, when the phone rang at 4:34 am.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She arrived in the alley a few minutes later, but initially had her doubts. \u00a0The dog in the cage seemed thinner than Zelda, with a lighter colored hair. Both turned out to be results of Zelda\u2019s time on the road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Taylor checked the caged dog\u2019s implanted chip. The numbers matched. They had Zelda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger fell to her knees crying. \u201cYou found me,\u201d she told Zelda. \u201cI never stopped looking for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the week since, Krueger has officially adopted Zelda. The family in Chanhassen surrendered its rights to the dog that had stayed with them only a few days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think we believe we choose dogs, but I really think it\u2019s dogs who choose us, and I think that\u2019s what happened,\u201d Krueger says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Taylor and Brunner have seen a lot during their searches for lost pets, but nothing that\u2019s compared to Zelda\u2019s 97-day odyssey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe brought us from Carver County to Hennepin County to Ramsey County. I wish I knew how she knew how to get here, but she made it,\u201d Taylor says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Krueger has taken to calling Zelda \u201cThe Wonderdog.\u201d Spelled wonder or wander, Zelda has earned the title.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen I think how much work all of us put in to find her, she was putting in so much more work to find me,\u201d Krueger says. \u201cIt\u2019s love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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