Buford, a 6-year-old Anatolian Pyrenees, received a hero’s meal for his heroic rescue.
“He got a 2-pound rib-eye last night,” Buford’s owner, Scotty Dunton, stated on Wednesday. “He’s just a cool, cool dog.”
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office stated that Buford earned the supper after he wandered home Tuesday morning with a 2-year-old toddler who had vanished from his Seligman, Arizona, home the previous day.
The boy’s home is 7 miles from Dunton’s ranch, which is located in a remote area of the state about 100 miles south of Grand Canyon National Park. The sheriff’s office reported that dozens of deputies and search-and-rescue teams had spent the night looking for him.
At 11:08 p.m. on Monday, the sheriff’s office shared information on the missing. The toddler has been located and was safe as of Tuesday at 8:20 a.m., according to the sheriff’s office.
According to Dunton, he found out about the missing youngster that morning.
Dunton was worried that the toddler wouldn’t be found alive because of his age, the weather (it was in the upper 40s), and the unpaved area.
“All big, thick trees and mountains and canyons and boulder piles,” he described the landscape around his ranch. “Not real friendly for a 2-year-old.”
The sheriff’s office said in the post reporting the boy’s recovery that two mountain lions were sighted nearby by a search helicopter.
Nevertheless, Dunton claimed to have seen Buford strolling down the driveway when he got into his pickup to head into town that morning. He remembered being with a tiny guy in a tank top, pyjama trousers and blond hair.
Approximately 7:30 a.m.
“I knew it was him,” Dunton stated. “He was all disoriented and crying. And so I jumped out and ran and grabbed him and told him ‘you’re OK, you’re OK,’ and took him inside and got him some water and food.”
“He calmed down pretty quick and turned back into a 2-year-old,” Dunton stated.
When Dunton asked the youngster if he had gone for a nighttime walk, the boy stated, “No.”
According to Dunton, “he kept saying, ‘tree, tree,’ So I said, ‘You laid down under a tree?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ And I said, ‘Did my dog find you?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.'”
Dunton claimed that the youngster was unharmed and that despite his offering of a blanket, the boy refused to accept it.
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“I said, ‘You’re the toughest 2-year-old I’ve ever seen,'” he stated. “There’s people saying, ‘There’s no way he made it that far. And something’s fishy about this story.’ And, like, I physically went and found his little foot tracks.”
“He walked that entire way,” Dunton continued.
According to him, Anatolian Pyrenees are naturally guard dogs, and in order to keep coyotes away, Buford usually sleeps all day and patrols his ranch at night.
Dunton followed the child’s footprints for a mile, but he wasn’t positive if the dog heard the boy sobbing and located him. He claimed that Buford was by his side the entire time.
