A lost dog was reunited with his family in Alaska after surviving an epic trek across 150 miles of Bering Sea ice that included being bitten in a possible seal or polar bear attack.
The one-year-old Australian Shepherd, called Nanuq, who lives in Gambell, Alaska, was visiting Savoogna, another St Lawrence Island community in the Bering Strait, last month when he disappeared with their other family dog, Starlight.
Starlight turned up a few weeks later, but Nanuq, which means polar bear in Siberian Yupik, was nowhere to be found.
About a month after Nanuq disappeared, people in Wales, 150 miles northeast of Savoonga on Alaska’s western coast, began posting pictures online of what they described as a lost dog.
Her owners spotted the post and realised it was theirs. Eventually he was brought back on a chartered flight.
Owner Mandy Iworrigan said: “I was like, `No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?”’
“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he ate leftovers of seal or caught a seal. Probably birds, too. He eats our Native foods. He’s smart.”
Except for a swollen leg, with large bite marks from an unidentified animal, Nanuq was in pretty good health.
“Wolverine, seal, small nanuq, we don’t know, because it’s like a really big bite,” she said.
