Dogs Who Saved Lost Boy Get New Home

They led a boy to the brink of death, then saved his life. Now two dogs are going to get a new home.

Josh Carlisle, a 10-year-old with Down syndrome, was playing in his yard when a couple of wandering dogs apparently caught his eye and he followed them into the rugged, wooded Ozarks near his home.

For three days, as temperatures dipped into single digits, up to 350 volunteers searched for the boy. On Saturday, a man on horseback heard barking and found Josh in the company of the two protective dogs.

“The dogs took him in as if they were his mother,” Sheriff Ralph Hendrix said Monday. “They probably curled up next to him and kept him warm, warm enough to stay alive on us.”

The dogs are “God’s angels,” said Josh’s stepfather, Lynn Coffey. He and Josh’s mother, Johnny Coffey, planned to give the strays a new home for keeping the boy alive.