Missing sheep comes b-a-a-a-ck
Missing sheep comes b-a-a-a-ck
ATHOL — Delilah the Shetland sheep came home Thursday night after a three-week epic adventure.
Delilah had just been sheared when she escaped from her pen at Chelsea Pomerinke’s house. The family searched all over and asked their neighbors if they had seen her. Nobody had.
Three weeks later, though, the sheep was home.
“I’m in total disbelief that she’s still alive,” Pomerinke said. “We heard a lot of coyote activity and assumed the worst.”
About two weeks after her escape, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office found Delilah about three miles away from her home in the 9000 block of Howard Road, north of Highway 54 near Athol.
The sheriff’s office took her in and called Linda Wilson, one of the contacts on its list of people willing to host found animals until their owners could be located and pick them up. Wilson kept Delilah for a little over a week.
“When I got her she was running a fever,” Wilson said. “She had a goiter on her neck and she was underweight. She’s real sweet though.”
Pomerinke found out Delilah was alive when one of her friends tagged her in a Facebook post by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. Pomerinke and her family couldn’t believe it.
“My two children are beside themselves excited,” she said. “That’s probably the best part of all.”
The Pomerinke family got Delilah from a friend when she was about 1 year old. The sheep had a cloudy eye and her legs were a bit twisted, so she got a lot of attention from humans and became very friendly.
“She wags her tail every time you pet her,” Pomerinke said.
Pomerinke went over every square inch of Delilah’s pen on Thursday to make sure there’s no way she can get out again. A little later, she got the call from Wilson to come over and get Delilah. She drove herself, her two kids and her mom over to Wilson’s house.
When Pomerinke reunited with her sheep, she was elated — and overcome with relief that her kids didn’t have to go through losing an animal.
“I think this is God’s miracle tonight,” she said. “And we’ve needed this for a while.”