Dog missing in Yellowstone over a month has been found

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Luna, the 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier from California who was lost in Yellowstone National Park since early September, has been reunited with her owner and is going home. Rescuers caught the dog Wednesday after she managed to survive the cold, feed herself and avoid coyotes in the wilderness for more than a month.

“The dog that was loose in the Canyon Village area has been captured and is alive and well,” Yellowstone National Park spokesperson Linda Veress confirmed to SFGATE.

At a veterinarian’s office Wednesday with Luna and the dog’s owner, rescuer Katie Boucher gave SFGATE an update on Luna’s condition and provided some details about how the rescue went down.

“We just know she’s skinny,” said Boucher, president of Norris Ark Training and Recovery Center, a nonprofit animal rescue in Norris, Montana. Luna has lost approximately half of her body weight, going from about 20 pounds to a little over 10 pounds.

After more than a month of trying to capture Luna, Boucher finally received a promising update from a park employee on Tuesday: Luna had been circling the trap set up for her — a doghouse with a straw-and-grass bed inside — and lying down near it. “I wanted to make sure she had some place that had something dry in it that she could shelter in,” Boucher said. When she found out the dog had been getting comfortable near the trap, she felt confident the rescue would happen within a couple of days.

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