Dog Luna Jack Russell Terrier Yellowstone: Tiny Terrier Survives 35 Days Alone In America’s Wildest Park To Be Reunited With Her California Family

CANYON VILLAGE, Wyoming — The trap had been set with a T-shirt and a pillowcase. They carried no food, no bait in the conventional sense, only the faint, familiar scent of the people Luna had spent 35 days trying to find her way back to.

Volunteers on Wednesday were able to catch a missing dog, ‘Luna’, in a live trap baited with a T-shirt and pillowcase carrying her owner’s scent in what is being hailed as a heartwarming reunion. The California family that lost their pet dog Luna believes a housekeeper accidentally let her out of a cabin they were staying in while they explored the park on 10 September. 

For over a month, Luna, a Jack Russell terrier that bolted from her family’s cabin during a vacation at Yellowstone National Park, eluded capture as fears for her survival mounted and winter weather approached. On Wednesday, her ordeal came to a happy ending when she was caught and reunited with her owners.

You Might Be Interested In

A park representative confirmed to ABC News via email: “The dog that was loose in the Canyon Village area has been captured and is alive and well.”

So How Did Luna End Up Alone In Yellowstone?

The California family was vacationing in the Canyon Village area of the park when they took an outing to the Norris Geyser Basin. Because dogs are not allowed there, they left Luna in their rented cabin with a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. “While they were gone, housekeeping made a mistake and opened up the cabin to go do their jobs,” Katie Boucher, president of Norris Ark Training and Recovery Centre in Norris, Montana, told Cowboy State Daily, “Luna escaped the cabin, and then the staff proceeded to chase her around the area for about two hours before the family got back and found out that their dog had been let out.” 

Her owners remained at Yellowstone for another week while searching for her before returning to their California home without their dog. What began as a family holiday in one of America’s most celebrated national parks had become a weeks-long ordeal conducted largely from across the country, with their 10-year-old terrier somewhere inside 2.2 million acres of geothermal wilderness.

Who Led The Search And How Did The Rescue Work?