Diego Jones-Bedolla took this photo of Blaze just after he and a friend, Benjamin Bradford, found the dog, missing for more than a day, near Haines on Jan. 13, 2025.

The cruel cold of a January twilight settled heavily on Baker Valley and Megan Kendall could think only of Blaze, her elderly and ailing dog, and how unfair it was that he should end his life alone, lost and cold.

It was a long life, by canine standards, 16 years.

And a good life, these past eight years that Blaze had with Kendall and her family.

A life of warm, soft beds and dishes filled with hearty food and soothing embraces and all the things that people bestow on dogs they love without condition.

Kendall had planned to care for Blaze only until Best Friends of Baker could find a permanent home for him in 2017.

But Blaze entwined himself into her family in the way that certain special dogs can do.

He became integral.

Necessary.

“I couldn’t let him go,” Kendall said.

Yet none of this seemed to matter to Kendall, none of the happy memories could begin to serve as consolation, as Jan. 13 slouched toward its end.

She imagined Blaze, who could barely hobble to the end of the block, huddled in the meager shelter of sagebrush as the temperature slunk below freezing and the coyotes began to prowl on the western slopes of Coyote Peak east of Haines, where Blaze had gone missing the previous afternoon.

“I was absolutely heartsick to let it go overnight again, knowing that it would be even colder and my sweet boy was either dead or suffering terribly,” Kendall said. “Blaze would not have survived a second night.”

Then her phone rang.

The sound that can confirm the worst our imaginations can conjure.

Or yank us, as with a mountain climber on the brink of a terrible precipice who gets a firm grasp on a rope, back to the comfort of solid ground.

The phone call

The time was 8:33 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 13.

Kendall was tucking her 6-year-old son, Ryan, into bed.

The caller was Diego Jones-Bedolla, a 19-year-old from Haines.

He spoke a couple of simple sentences.

Kendall could scarcely believe what she heard.

Jones-Bedolla and his friend, Benjamin Bradford, his 16-year-old neighbor in Haines, had found Blaze just a few minutes earlier in a pasture near the Haines dump.

The dog was alive.

“I can only describe the moment as emotional whiplash,” Kendall said. “Going from utterly despondent to straight over the moon in an instant.”

She didn’t bother to change out of her pajamas and flip-flops.

Kendall grabbed a sweater and ran for her car.

Before she got there, Jones-Bedolla texted a photo of Blaze.

She knew there was no mistake about the identification.

“I just lost it,” Kendall said.

Blaze goes missing

The ordeal started with a sledding trip on the afternoon of Jan. 12.

Kendall drove with Ryan and her three dogs, including Blaze, to the place they always parked, beside a boulder where the Coyote Peak and Haines Dump roads intersect.

That’s about a mile northeast of downtown Haines.

Kendall and Ryan walked to a sledding hill about 150 yards from their car.

Two of the dogs, being younger and more agile than Blaze, ran through the sagebrush.

Blaze, meanwhile, “bumbled around near the car, just sniffing the sagebrush and rolling in patches of snow, as he always does,” Kendall said.

She could see all three dogs as her son slid down the hill.

About 20 minutes later, Kendall noticed that she could no longer see Blaze.

She walked to the car. He wasn’t there.

“I knew almost immediately that something was wrong,” she said.

Kendall texted four friends who, like her, volunteer with Best Friends of Baker to house dogs until they can be adopted.

All four drove straight to Haines.

“We’ve responded to countless lost dogs, but this was one of our own,” Kendall said. “It was surreal to be on the other end of that scenario.”

The group search until dusk. They found no sign of Blaze.

The dog’s disappearance made no sense, Kendall said, given Blaze’s infirmities.

“Blaze can hardly walk to the stop sign at the end of our block,” she said. “He uses a ramp to get in and out of the car. I even deliver his dinner bowl so he doesn’t have to get up.”

Even when Blaze was younger and much more mobile, he never wandered away, Kendall said.

“It made no sense that he could have wandered farther than multiple people can search in several hours,” she said.

Nor could she fathom why someone would have picked up Blaze. She hadn’t seen another car drive past while she and her friends were searching.

“The third and most gut-wrenching theory was that Blaze had been attacked by coyotes,” she said.

But she talked with a friend who’s a wildlife biologist, who told Kendall that a coyote attack would have left evidence, and likely made noise.

“It was like he just vanished into thin air,” she said. “It was a sickening combination of panic and utter confusion. I could not believe he was out there in the cold, dark night alone.”

Kendall flagged down an ATV, whose rider and a friend searched with a drone and spotlight.

Kendall drove back to Baker City to get warmer clothes and post on Facebook that Blaze was missing.

The second day

Kendall and her friends resumed the search at dawn on Tuesday, Jan. 14. They were soon joined by others.

“Close friends, acquaintances and strangers alike,” Kendall said. “Even a few I’ve known on Facebook for years, but had never met in person until they showed up to help find my dog. All morning, afternoon, evening and into the night, there was an incredible outpouring of support.”

But as the sun, with its thin January warmth, dipped behind the wall of the Elkhorns, Blaze was still missing.

Not long after, Kendall’s phone rang.

The rescue

Jones-Bedolla learned about Blaze from his mom, Katie Bedolla, who had seen Kendall’s Facebook post.

Jones-Bedolla, who graduated from Baker High School in 2023, said he’s “pretty familiar” with the area where Blaze went missing.

He thought about joining the search the first day, Jan. 12, until he learned that others were already looking for Blaze with dogs and ATVs and drones.

“I’m probably not going to add much help to the situation,” Jones-Bedolla said.

But by the next evening, with Blaze still missing, Jones-Bedolla decided to get involved.

He called Bradford, who lives just a few houses away. They have spent quite a bit of time around Coyote Peak, often bringing Jones-Bedolla’s beagle, Ferris (named for the titular character of the 1986 movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”).

Bradford, who hadn’t heard about Blaze until Jones-Bedolla called him, agreed to go along with his friend.

They left between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

As they drove toward Coyote Peak, the full moon starting to illuminate the ground, the buddies planned their search.

They agreed that based on Kendall’s description of Blaze, and in particular his lack of mobility, the dog probably didn’t head east, up the steep slope of Coyote Peak.

Rather, it seemed likely that Blaze would have walked downhill, past the dump toward Haines.

“That was our theory,” Bradford said.

“It seemed like a good place to start,” Jones-Bedolla said.

The pair started walking through the sagebrush near the dump, Bradford holding a flashlight.

Almost immediately, Ferris moved west, downhill.

A few minutes later they heard a sound in the distance, also to the west.

“It sounded almost like a goose, a honking noise,” Jones-Bedolla.

But they also agreed that they were hearing a dog barking and that the distance, and the terrain, was creating a sort of audible illusion.

When they reached a fence on the border between the sagebrush and a grass pasture, Ferris seemed eager to cross the fence.

“Which is unlike him,” Jones-Bedolla said.

They went through the fence and, as they continued walking west, the sound continued and the volume increased.

It sounded more like a dog and less like a goose.

The friends had also found muddy prints, obviously from a canine, on patches of snow among the sagebrush before they crossed the fence.

Jones-Bedolla said they couldn’t be sure the tracks were made by a dog rather than a coyote — they heard the yips and yowls of nearby coyotes — but it seemed like a promising sign.

Then the beam of Bradford’s flashlight revealed a dark spot about 150 yards ahead.

It looked like a dog, lying on the cold ground.

It was Blaze.

Jones-Bedolla and Bradford both said they were concerned that Blaze, frightened by his ordeal, might try to run away or resist their attempts to save him.

They needn’t have worried.

“He was super calm, let us pet him,” Jones-Bedolla said. “He didn’t growl at us or anything.”

Frost glistened on Blaze’s black fur.

It was obvious that he couldn’t walk.

“He tried to get up once or twice but fell back down,” Bradford said.

Jones-Bedolla, who had Kendall’s number from her Facebook post, called her.

He and Bradford took turns carrying Blaze, who weighs about 80 pounds, through the pasture and sagebrush to the Haines Dump Road.

There they met Kendall.

“She hugged us,” Jones-Bedolla said. “It was a really special moment.”

Bradford said it was immediately obvious that for Kendall, Blaze was no ordinary dog.

“I’m just glad that we found a dog that means so much to her,” Bradford said. “He’s part of the family.”

The reward

Kendall had offered a $500 reward, and one of her friends matched that amount.

After thanking Jones-Bedolla and Bradford, she asked for their phone numbers so she could ensure they got the money.

Both declined.

Jones-Bedolla laughed as he conceded that “it would be nice to have $500.”

But he said it was a simple decision to turn down the money.

“Someone shouldn’t have to pay to see their dog again,” Jones-Bedolla said. “We were out there for Blaze, not for the money. I’m glad that the story had a good ending.”

Bradford agreed.

“I’m just happy that we found the dog,” he said.

Blaze is back

Kendall drove Blaze to her home.

He had sore paws and was severely dehydrated but otherwise uninjured.

“He just drank and drank and drank,” she said. “It took more than 24 hours to rehydrate him. For the first two days he had to be carried, but with lots of rest and an additional prescription medication, he was back to normal by the third day.”

Kendall knew even before Blaze disappeared that she would soon say good-bye to him forever.

But as painful as that moment must be, she wanted to have some control over the setting.

She wanted to ensure that when Blaze took his final breath he was warm and well-fed and with those who had loved him long and well.

She could not imagine her old friend dying alone, under the merciless cold glare of the moon.

“I couldn’t let him die like that,” Kendall said. “After loving and spoiling him for most of a decade, I could not let him die alone, confused, cold, hungry and thirsty, wondering where I am. The mere thought of it is totally unbearable.”

Jones-Bedolla and Bradford, she said, “rescued me from that.”

“I may only have another six to 12 months with Blaze, but I know he’ll die at home, feeling safe, warm and loved in my arms. That alone means everything to me.”

“I may only have another six to 12 months with Blaze, but I know he’ll die at home, feeling safe, warm and loved in my arms. That alone means everything to me.”

— Megan Kendall