Deacon, a 5-year-old border collie/Australian shepherd cowdog belonging to Kaylah and Jesse Swanson of Sparta, went missing in the Wallowa Mountains on Oct. 21, 2023.

Each morning Kaylah Swanson’s kids step onto the porch of the family’s home on a cattle ranch near Sparta and call for Deacon, their three-legged cow dog.

Each morning there is no answer.

No answering bark from Deacon, and for Kaylah, no answer for her children’s questions about when, or whether, their pal is coming home.

“I’m at a loss,” Kaylah said on Thursday morning, Oct. 26.

Five days before, on Oct. 21, Deacon, a 5-year-old, three-legged border collie/Australian shepherd, went missing while accompanying Kaylah’s husband, Jesse, on a one-night backpacking trip to Crater Lake, near East Eagle Creek in the Eagle Cap Wilderness.

Kaylah said Jesse and a friend were riding horseback. Deacon and the Swansons’ three other cow dogs tagged along on the switchbacking trail to Crater Lake.

Around noon, and about halfway up the approximately 6-mile trail to the lake, Jesse noticed that Deacon wasn’t around.

Kaylah said that although Deacon, like most cow dogs, can cover a lot of ground, “it’s really unlike him to peel off from the other dogs, they’ve been together for so long.”

Nonetheless, Kaylah said Jesse wasn’t too worried initially, figuring Deacon would arrive at camp after his excursion.

But Deacon didn’t show up.

Kaylah said Jesse assumed Deacon, who has been in the area a few times and was used to traveling in the mountains, followed the trail back to the truck and horse trailer.

But the next morning, when Jesse rode back to the trailhead, he found no sign of Deacon either on the trail or at the truck.

Jesse drove the nearby roads, calling for Deacon and looking for tracks, but to no avail.

Jesse left food where the trailer had been parked, along with one of his jackets to give Deacon a familiar scent as a possible guide.

Jesse returned the next day, Monday, Oct. 23. He left more food and another jacket.

Although the food had been eaten, Kaylah pointed out that wild animals, rather than Deacon, could have gobbled the dog food.

Mystified, Kaylah and Jesse pondered the possible explanations for Deacon’s disappearance.

They wondered if he had been caught in a trap.

Kaylah said Deacon is friendly, and likely would have greeted anyone who approached him. She envisions a well-meaning person picking up Deacon. He doesn’t have a tag with information about his owners or home.

As of Friday morning, Oct. 27, no one had responded to her multiple Facebook posts to report seeing, or rescuing, a three-legged cow dog in the area.

Jesse has continued to search the area, but his efforts have been fruitless so far.

Kayla said her optimism drops with each passing day.

She hopes that with many elk hunters heading to the mountains starting next week, there will be more chances for someone to run across Deacon.

The snow this week might make it easier to track him.

She and her husband have discussed setting up a remote camera near where Jesse left the two jackets.

In the meantime they wait.

The couple have three daughters, ranging from 8 months to nearly 3 years, and a 4-year-old son.

Deacon’s right back leg was amputated about 2 years ago, but the loss didn’t slow him, Kaylah said.

He injured the leg initially in an incident with a horse. A veterinarian installed pins to stabilize the leg, but Deacon reinjured the limb when he jumped from a truck, and the vet said further surgeries weren’t feasible.

Deacon, who is neutered, is an outside dog, Kaylah said.

Although he sometimes accompanies another of the family’s male cow dogs on extended journeys, Deacon has never failed to return home the same day, she said.

Deacon has a closer relationship with the Swanson children than the three other dogs, Kaylah said.

“He’s very protective of the kids, and has been since he was a puppy,” she said.

Deacon’s bond with the children was strengthened during the six weeks he had to live inside the family’s home while recovering from the amputation.

“He sneaks inside sometimes and cleans up the kids’ food scraps under the table,” Kaylah said.

Sometimes Deacon has help with these trespassing episodes.

“The kids will sneak him in,” Kaylah said.

Although her Facebook posts haven’t yielded any definitive news about Deacon, Kaylah said one message buoyed her spirits.

The message was from a woman whose dog also went missing in the mountains. That dog traveled about 27 miles but returned home.

“That was super encouraging,” Kaylah said.

The Crater Lake trail is about 15 miles, as the raven flies, from Sparta.

Anyone with information about Deacon can contact Kaylah Swanson through her Facebook page.

“I’m at a loss.”

— Kaylah Swanson, talking about her family’s missing dog, Deacon