'We thought he was dead': 5-month-old shih tzu wanders home after a week in the desert

CEDAR CITY — A 5-month-old shih tzu is home with its family after being lost for a week in the rugged, desert landscape of the Utah/Nevada border, and the owners are now calling him "Miracle Monty."

Ingrid and Donni Krans were out camping during their annual hunting trip in Iron Springs with their three shih tzu's when the thunder came.

"It was Friday the 21st, and (Donni had) been up hunting for almost a week," Ingrid Krans told KSL."He was out hunting and we had a thunderstorm come through and it scared the dogs. I had them out doing a little potty break, and we were trying to fix the generator, and they got really scared from the thunder, and two of her dogs, including Monty, took off."

The older dog, 11-year-old Moose, had taken off, and little Monty followed suit. Ingrid Krans said she called out for both dogs, and when neither responded, she got in her car to look while also calling her husband for help.

"I was sittin' in a blind hoping some elk would come in because they usually do with the rain like that," Donni Krans recalled.

This was Donni's vacation that he had saved two weeks of time off from work for, and he said that the first two days were "some of the best hunting (he) had gotten," adding that "All of a sudden, the dog was missing, and that was my hunt. I had to hunt for that dog."

"(Ingrid) pulled up and told me two of the dogs were missing, so I loaded everything up in the side-by-side and was hot on her tail coming back. We got on up there and the dogs were gone. We started driving all over, shouting."

Moose was able to be called back, but Monty was still lost. As hours turned into days, the couple feared the worst.

"When we first got to the campsite, there were coyotes all over the place howling and everything," Donni Krans said. "The next day, the coyotes were howling where we lost him, so we were terrified that the coyotes had got him. ... There were 30-40 crows just flying out in that area constantly."

Aside from possible predators, the couple worried about heat exposure and a lack of water.

"It was 90 degrees out there, and there's no water, "Donni Krans said.

The couple asked friends to help find Monty and even printed posters to put up. They said they walked nearly every trail in search of him, then turned to a friend for comfort and advice.

"I got a buddy who does some mountain lion hunting up in Wyoming and he said he never hears of coyotes eating dogs," he recalled. "He said that more than likely, the rain will wash the scent away and (Monty) couldn't get any scent (to make his way back home)."

As a last resort, the couple decided to use their female dog, Maggie, to bring in some scent. After a week of searching, and just as they were ready to pack up and head back home to Cedar City, they heard a little bark.

"We woke up and heard a little bark and ... I thought it was just the camper creaking," Ingrid Krans said. "We thought (Monty) was dead. The night before, we sat under the stars, and we were just crying knowing he was gone.

"Then we opened the door, and he just bounced right inside and goes straight for water. He was so excited to see us, but he went straight for water."

In a video shared with KSL, Monty is shown wagging his tail and drinking water, with two very happy and relieved owners crying in the background.

"I cried. I screamed, I cried. I'm still crying," Ingrid Krans said. "It still kind of gets me. I can't believe he's back after being out in the wilderness — he's a snack out there."

Donni Krans said that even though he's going to have to wait another year for a chance to hunt again, getting Monty back was well worth it.

"We thought the heat would have killed him. We thought the falcons would have killed him," he said. "There were 30-40 crows just flying out in that area constantly. It was a lot of ups and downs, but it ended on a really good note."

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