Missing momma dog surfaces 75 kilometres away

Alena and Hailey Strelaeff show off Angel and her six new puppies. Angel went missing from behind their Saltair home and turned up in Victoria.

Matthew Peterson

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When Alena Strelaeff became separated from her dog, she feared the worst.

“I wasn’t sure if somebody had stolen her, I didn’t know if she’d been hit by a car, I didn’t know if someone thought she was abandoned and was going to keep her,” said Strelaeff, adding there have been reports of dognapping in her neighbourhood.

The ordeal started on Monday, July 5, after Angel, a three-year-old poodle, had just come out of the bath.

Strelaeff was on horseback behind their Saltair home that evening with her sister and Angel, whose collar was removed for the bath.

“It’s waist-high grass and we got separated,” said Strelaeff. Strelaeff went back to the farm and Angel left in the opposite direction.

Strelaeff said Angel must have wandered up to the highway, because when she went looking at the other end of the land, Angel was gone.

Adding to her anxiety was the fact Angel was pregnant with her first litter of puppies and Strelaeff wanted to be there for the birth.

Strelaeff, along with her kids, Hailey, 12, and Danika, 10, searched late into the night, hoping to find their beloved family pet.

“They were with me up to 11 p.m. wandering and looking and calling for her,” said Strelaeff of her two daughters.

The next they would see of Angel would be on an evening edition of A-News, where it was reported a dog had been dropped off and was found wandering in Victoria … it was Angel.

Everyone was ecstatic she was found safe and sound.

Angel had given birth to six puppies. Three, unfortunately, did not make it.

“Sometimes when you have puppies and they come really fast, you have to help them out of the sack.”

Strelaeff, who used to breed Labradoodles, said Angel holds a special place in her family’s heart as Angel’s sister was lost during a fire in Coombs two years ago.

“I lost all my dogs,” said Strelaeff.

Angel, however, was staying with Strelaeff’s friend in Duncan at the time of the fire.

So when the opportunity arose to breed Angel and keep that cherished bloodline alive, Strelaeff jumped at it.

So far they have three names for the new puppies, Ariel, Josh and Melody.