Abby’s expedition

To paraphrase the trailer for the 1943 movie “Lassie Come Home,” this isn’t a pretentious story or an epic.

It is “too real, too human, too beautiful for high-sounding adjectives.”

It is enough to make Otis Orchards resident Kathy Morse tremble in disbelief.

While the fictional Lassie ran away and traveled hundreds of miles to get home, the real-life Abby traveled nine miles through Spokane Valley to get to her regular doggy-sitters, Kathy and Lonnie Morse.

Abby lost seven of her 59 pounds and had sore paws and a slight limp, but otherwise was OK.

As far as anyone knows, the red heeler-border collie mix had never previously traveled between the two houses.

The trip took her 15 days. Days in which the Morses and Abby’s owners, Rob and Jann Chatters, and her alternate sitters, Jim and Margaret Nielson, were combing the streets for her.

Kathy Morse said she had just about given up hope when Abby turned up at her doorstep.

“I was in shock,” Morse said. “I checked her ID twice. I could not believe this was Abby, but she is very distinctive-looking.”

Morse said her hand was shaking so badly she had a hard time dialing the phone to tell the Chatterses.

The Morses hadn’t been available when the Chatterses, who live in Hayden, wanted to go on a trip last month. So the Chatterses took Abby to the home of their niece, Margaret Nielson, in the 1200 block of North Marguerite Road on Sept. 17.

Abby had stayed there before and was on good terms with Nielsons’ dogs, Rob Chatters said.

“Our niece is a dog lover,” he said. “Abby just got a wild hair and decided, ‘I’m going to run off.’ ”

She got her chance when the Nielsons went out on Friday evening, Sept. 19. The couple’s yard is fully fenced, but Abby apparently scooted under a gate, Chatters said.

Abby had never run away from home, but she once ran away from another dog-sitter’s house in Dalton Gardens. She returned to the house within eight hours, and Chatters thought she’d similarly return to the Nielsons’ home.

Family friend Bob Ovnicek, of Post Falls, predicted all along that Abby would show up at the Morses’ home. Ovnicek and his wife get together regularly with the Chatterses and Morses to play cards.

The couples’ dogs also are buddies.

The Ovniceks have a “black Lab-pointer mix of some kind” named Buddy, Rob Chatters said. And the Morses’ have Becky, a dingo-mix.

Rob Chatters said Abby was believed to have been 3 years old when he and his wife got her three years ago from the Kootenai Humane Society in Coeur d’Alene.

When Abby arrived on the afternoon of Oct. 4, Becky was the first to know.

“My dog cried at the front door, and so I went to open it and Abby was just sitting there,” Morse said. “I was hysterical, and she was very calm.”

Morse said Abby has “street smarts.” Still, Morse had just about given up hope.

When she saw Abby at her door, Morse thought the Chatterses had found her on their own and were playing a trick.

“For the first minute or so, I kept looking around, expecting Rob and Jann to jump out,” Morse said.

Rob Chatters was a bit less surprised about Abby’s return. A woman had called the day before to say she and her husband had spotted Abby lying by the roadside near the Wellesley Avenue overpass on Trent Avenue. But Abby took off when approached.

“Abby’s a little stand-offish if she doesn’t know somebody,” Ron Chatters said.

He said the woman who called was responding to one of several advertisements – in Nickel Nik, The Spokesman-Review and Craigslist.org.

Chatters said he figured it might take Abby a couple of months to get home, “but we were starting to feel a little less confident about it.”

He said Abby was happy to see her humans when they came for her at the Morse house, but was in a hurry to get home. She went to their car on her own and waited for someone to let her in, Chatters said.

“She’s a little bit clingy right now,” he said. “She keeps pretty good track of where we are, and she’s definitely showing more interest in her food and water.”