Where's Sunny?!!!

"I live in a big house all by myself, and I just wanted to have a beating heart in this building. She is nothing but love and sweetness."

"This dog suffers from separation anxiety probably because of the loss of her first owner."

"She is always following me around. She's my best pal. She's an amazing doggie."

Norman Feigenbaum, 93, Los Angeles resident 

 

"He was very distraught and did not know what to do." 

"[The vast nature preserve where the dog was tracked to] doesn't have any water in it. At that point, it had not rained here for months. It was very concerning as to how she was surviving."

"[Between the coyotes and lack of food and water] there is no doubt she was on borrowed time."

"They [lost dogs wandering about aimlessly] don't go to sleep when they're out; they're on alert all the time. They have to be for their survival."

"She wanted to get back to him; she just didn't know how."

Jennifer Justice, volunteer, Dog Days Search and Rescue

Feigenbaum adopted Sunny four years ago from a shelter after her previous owner had died.

 

Seven-year-old Sunny, constant companion of Norman Feigenbaum was nowhere to be seen when the 93-year-old returned from a brief shopping trip and called out to her as he entered their home. The man kept calling his yellow Lab's name, going from room to room in the house they shared (Mr. Feigenbaum's wife had died in 2016, and the lonely man had gone to a shelter four years ago where Sunny, at age three, was being housed, and he adopted her to fill a void in his life.) "She was gone", he realized. 

 

It seemed obvious to the distraught man that Sunny had wanted to find him and go with him wherever he was headed; in this case, the grocery store. Thus motivated, she had managed to scale a six-foot backyard wall, having exited the house through the doggie door he'd had installed for her convenience and his. Needing help to track down Sunny, Mr. Feigenbaum contacted Dog Days Search and Rescue, a non-profit whose purpose is to help to reunite lost animals with their humans.

 

Volunteers with the rescue group distributed posters and Mr. Feigenbaum drove about on his scooter, handing out flyers to passersby. Someone, it turned out, had seen Sunny the very day she disappeared, spotting her on the very same route that Mr. Feigenbaum took to get to the grocery store. Scouring the area for days, volunteers were unable to find Sunny, and thus a week went by. "It was distressing to everybody", said Jennifer Justice whose group contacted local media to help advertise the missing dog.

 

As it happened, someone living in a house that overlooks a large nature preserve some half-mile north of Mr. Feigenbaum's house had seen a yellow lab wandering about. After seeing one of the posters, the homeowners contacted Dog Days Search and Rescue. How Sunny managed to get into the Chatsworth Nature Preserve was a puzzler. e, explained Ms. Justice, "However, the coyotes have made several holes along the fence line. Crews go in there and do some work and I think that's how she actually got in."

 

Sunny was found near the Chatsworth Reservoir in Los Angeles, the rescue shared.

 

Problem: the nature preserve is an 1,325-acre open-space preserve, and rescuers ran into problems attempting to access the private property. When rescue volunteers finally were permitted to enter the preserve, no trace was found of Sunny. Cameras and traps were set up along the fence line by the rescue team hoping Sunny might exit through one of the coyote holes and enter a trap baited with food and with Mr. Feigenbaum's unwashed socks. Sunny was seen on the cameras sniffing the socks, but failed to exit the preserve.

 

Rescuers camped out in their cars for hours each day, while Mr. Feigenbaum sat outside the fence, calling out to Sunny. Rescuers were frustrated in their attempts to contact the proper authorities with the preserve,  hoping to get permission to set up traps in the preserve itself. "It was very frustrating", Ms. Justice  recounted; "Everyone we called kept saying, 'I'm not the right person'." Finally they managed to get through for permission to access the preserve where they set up traps, twelve days after Sunny had disappeared. 

 

"Within a few hours we got her", said Ms. Justice. "She was scared. She didn't know who we were, and there was a lot of fussing going on." Sunny looked thin, and kept falling asleep. Mr. Feigenbaum was  telephoned to inform him of Sunny's rescue, then they drove directly to his house with Sunny. Sunny's tail went on metronome overdrive as soon as she saw her human. "She had a huge smile on her face", said Ms. Justice. "It was very obvious that he was her person, and he was so incredibly happy to get his dog back."   

"I was so excited and relieved. My baby was coming back to me."

"I was absolutely staggered and still am. The response has been incredible, and I'm very grateful."

"She is back to her old self. She won't leave my side."

"Without her, there's nothing."

Norman Feigenbaum 

Norman Feigenbaum, 93, had an emotional reunion (pictured) with his Labrador, Sunny, after she went missing for nearly two weeks.