I'm a sucker for a good animal story. So naturally this headline from today's Quad-City Times got my attention: "It's a bird, it's a plane...it's a dog?" Bill Wundram writes about a little Pomeranian named Sadie who took a wild two-mile ride in a great horned owl's talons—and lived to bark about it.
"Of all the incredulous tales that turn up in the Quad-Cities, none that I know of can match this … A dog falling from the night skies.
And it’s true, too!
Sadie, a petite-sized Pomeranian, landed next to a Davenport street last weekend after surviving a flight of about two miles, clutched in the talons of a great horned owl.
As the owl flies, Sadie’s flight covered between 24 to 30 city blocks. She was scruffed up, but suffered nothing worse than bruises and a broken tail.
Sadie’s owl-napping saga began when her owner, Michelle McCarten, and friends were watching fireworks a week ago Saturday in the Village of East Davenport. Sadie was spooked by the booming, jumping off McCarten’s porch at 2216 E. 12th St., and fleeing into a nearby woodsy area. McCarten and friends called and searched. No luck.
What they didn’t realize was that a giant owl known to perch in the area had grabbed Sadie."
Read the rest of the story at the Quad-City Times.
See a somewhat shaken Sadie reunited with her owner in this video.