person sitting at top of cliff looking out into a valley
Sarah Biren
Sarah Biren
January 12, 2024 ·  3 min read

She hears rumor about a dog who cries in the mountains at night – climbs up and makes discovery like no other

Trinity Smith saw a post about mysterious barking on Mount Bross. She grew concerned there was a dog who needed her help. Plus, the mountain was close to her home. So she set out on a hike to find the source of the barking.

“I was laying in bed last Wednesday scrolling through the pics and saw a post about a guy hearing a dog barking on his way back down Mt. Bross,” Smith said. “Some of the comments on this post were hikers very concerned that there might be a dog in distress stuck up there, but the majority of comments were from people stating it was probably a coyote.[1]

Hiker Finds a Missing Dog in the Mountains

The next day, she set out on her hike, thinking she’d confirm if the source was a dog or a coyote after all. She reached the spot the hiker spoke about and heard nothing. She tried calling for a dog and got no response for an hour. It was getting dark, so she decided to give up.

“That’s when I finally heard the first barks. I immediately hopped off the trail and went straight down into a gully and straight back up toward some cliffs toward the top. The dog had frantically started barking by then so I was yelling out and bawling my eyes out trying to pinpoint the exact location,” Smith said. 

However, it was dark and dangerous to try clearing rocks alone. So she hurried back to her car and asked for help on the group. Immediately, she got a response from another animal lover. They searched the area together but heard nothing.

But Smith knew the dog was out there. So she returned the next day with her boyfriend, Sean, and the hiker from the night before. “We spent about four hours yelling for this dog, who hasn’t made a noise since I was up there alone the day before. It started snowing so we were starting to give up hope, and then once again the dog knew we were leaving and let out its first bark,” Smith said. 

Read: Woman At The Beach Meets A Dog Who Won’t Stop Staring Out To Sea

Photo of Chloe safe at home
Image Credit: Trinity Smith

Searching for Chloe

They found a starved dog trapped in a rocky chute. Normally, she weighed 90 pounds but weighed on 26 at that point. Still, the dog, named Chloe, was fighting for her life. Smith gave her water and food and drove her into town to find the owners. “I couldn’t believe she had enough energy to wag her tail. But she was so happy. She knew that she was safe. She knew that she was going home,” said Smith. [2]

Sean carries the missing dog down the mountain.
Image Credit: Trinity Smith

Chloe is a 14-year-old pit bull and Labrador mix who went missing on Mount Bross from her home in Alma, Colorado. Her owners, Larry Osborne and his wife Anouk Patel, asked the 300 residents of the small town for help. However, after five weeks of searching, people began to give up on finding Chloe.

I’d told our son the dog had died,” Osborne said. “I mean, how the hell could anyone survive that?” Several days after the memorial is when Smith heard about the mysterious barking on the mountain. [3]

Patel explained that Chloe hates leashes and loves exploring the mountain behind their home. “It’s literally out the back door,” she said. “Like, I look out my window every morning, and I can see Mount Bross. But she always comes home before nightfall. Without fail, she comes home for her dinner.” That is, until the night she got stuck in a chute and didn’t return.

Read: Annual Festival Honors Dogs For Their Loyalty And Friendship

It truly is a miracle”

Today, Chloe is recovering well and she has made a lifelong friend in Smith who lives nearby and somehow did not hear about the search for the dog. “The owners are forever grateful. They ended up being our neighbors we had never met. So I get to check on Chloe whenever I want,” Smith said.

She was gone exactly six weeks to the day,” said Patel. “It truly is a miracle for sure. It’s the wildest story. It’s the perfect happy ending to what could have been a really sad thing.”

Chloe is finally reunited with her owners
Image Credit: Trinity Smith

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