Destinations

Three Dogs Saved me From a Wild Moose

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

By Julie Avellino
Ski Patrol at Winter Park

2003 was my first summer living in Winter Park, Colorado. I moved to work at the ski resort and had broken my collarbone while downhill mountain biking within the first month of living here. I had some friends come for a visit to mountain bike and I was unable to go so I gave them the go ahead to enjoy the gravity logic trails this locale has to offer.

They went biking and I took the dogs for a walk up Jim Creek, which is a nice casual hike on the other side of HWY 40 from the Winter Park ski resort. We hiked all the way up to the snow line and I decided to take my time getting down and check out my new surroundings.

The trail offers many meadows to enjoy. So in one of them, I was perched on a nice large rock in the sun, and the three dogs, my dog Jane Rose a pit bull/boxer mix, Béla a pure bred pit bull, and Kachina a pure bred Border Collie, were frolicking in the prevalent wildflowers.

As I was enjoying a frosty cold beverage I heard a rustle in the dense trees to the left. There I saw a moose calf; the dogs also noticed the calf and went to go bark at it. That is when I heard more rustling behind me and turned around and saw the mother.

I stood up realizing I wasn’t in a good situation, threw my backpack over my good shoulder and went to run.

I was thinking “stand, oh shit, grab my backpack with my good arm, other arm in a sling, can’t…bring…arms…up.” I lost my balance trying to run and got maybe ten feet and fell on my broken collar bone and heard a crunch. I had just broken it two weeks earlier. I knew it was broken again.

The mother moose came charging at me through the woods. I must have let out a yelp when I fell. The mother moose was about 30 feet from me and charging. Jane Rose jumped in front of the charging moose and saved my life.

Jane Rose and Béla came to my rescue and started nipping at the moose’s legs and jumping up and trying to grab the beast’s neck, diverting the attention away from me.

As I watched Jane Rose jump for the neck, the moose was also getting ready to buck and she kicked Jane Rose in the forehead, throwing her through the air. I thought she was dead. She was knocked out when she landed like a rag doll.

Kachina, the Collie, is barking and nipping at the calf and while Béla was occupying the mother, I climbed a tree and stayed there for about 20 minutes. This moose was not leaving. Then Béla and Kachina, by antagonizing the calf made the mother finally go away from the tree and back to taking care of her calf.

I jumped out of the tree and tried to cross the swollen creek and was washed down Jim Creek in the spring run off. It was the year we recorded 72” of snow in 3 days of March, so the spring was high and running fast. I pulled myself out of the river with my good arm, discovered I had lost my backpack (keys, money, glasses, etc.) and was standing on a washed out turn in the creek with a five foot embankment, like a wall that was over my head, I was trapped. I’m only 4’11”.

I had no dogs, I was wet and cold. I did not want to go back in that frigid water.

Then I hear a thump, thump, thump from the other side of the wall and the moose jumped over my head to the other side of the river, and was getting ready to charge me again. At that point I thought I was going to die. Then the dogs jumped off the embankment over my head across the river and once again saved my life. Kachina, the Border Collie, nipped at her heels so the moose turned up stream and Béla the pitbull antagonized her in order to get the moose to chase after him. Kachina then came to me and guided me along side the river and back to the trail, letting me hold on to her collar.

I was panicked, my friends’ dog is getting chased by the mother moose, my dog is knocked out cold somewhere and I had no idea where I was. I found some trees grown closely together so if the moose came back, she couldn’t charge and started to softly whistle and call Jane Rose.

I was hoping and praying she wasn’t dead, and then to my surprise she found me. Kachina, Jane Rose, and I started to head down trail away from the chaos and I saw a family, The Goodman’s, also out enjoying the beautiful day. They started to yell, “Hey did you see the moose, and we got pictures of it!” I started to cry and said “Yes, help me, that moose has been chasing me and I lost one of my dogs and re-broke my collar bone.”

Seeing that I was in shock, wet and bleeding they offered me some water. As I was reaching for the water bottle, the son says, “Look there’s a dog” and then the father said, “And there’s the moose.” Béla was charging down the trail with the moose behind it. I reached for the children’s hands and yelled at the top of my tired lungs “You run like you have never ran before.”

So the whole family and I ran. Like a Flock of Seagulls song. Jane Rose and Kachina were leading the way, I was running with the kids hands in mine, followed by the parents and then Béla.

The moose chased all of us down trail for at least a mile, then suddenly came to a sliding stop behind us. Then she just turned around and went back up the trail to reunite with her calf.

The Goodman’s loaded the dogs and me, all soaking wet, into their minivan and took me to Seven Mile Medical Clinic at the base of Winter Park Ski Resort. As I was being x-rayed and checked over, John Goodman came into the clinic and said Jane Rose was bleeding out her nose and going in and out of consciousness and what could he do to help. He took Jane Rose to the closest vet and waited with her until I could get to see her.

The next day I met up with the Goodman family to discuss the prior day’s events, and to give them complimentary passes to the resorts summer attractions. In hindsight we realized they were down trail taking pictures of the moose and it’s calf, while I was up trail of them. Possibly leaving the mother moose with the feeling of being trapped by invaders of her feeding space.

Two months later a little girl turned in my backpack to the guest services tent at the base of the resort while I was working. They called me over so I could retrieve my lost goods from the girl. I asked her where she found it, and the little girl stated she was hiking with her family and saw what looked like a drivers license floating in the river near some runoff debris and reached to grab it and she was surprised to find it attached to a backpack.

Her family soon realized that it was a Winter Park Resort summer season pass and promptly returned it that day. I thanked the little girl and informed of the circumstances with it being lost and was very surprised to see it again.

Unfortunately this happy story of everyone surviving does end on a sad note. Jane Rose passed away this past June due to liver failure. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my dogs and my fellow friend’s dog’s dedication to me. To this day I owe Jane Rose a life debt, and she is not here anymore with me. I figure that she couldn’t protect me in the physical form anymore because I am destined for wonderful and great things so she had to move on in order to protect me in spiritual realm.

In loving memory of Jane Rose 2002 – 2009

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Continued from the November/December 2009 issue of FIDO Friendly magazine.

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Issue 40 November/December 2009

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