Her pet donkey went missing. Neighbors combed the woods for days to find him.

Just before 7 a.m., Deirdre Carter did her regular check on the animals in her barn. Murty, one of her donkeys, usually greets her right away.

“Murty is always the first one I see,” said Carter, who lives on a 30-acre property in Berkshire County, Mass. She and her husband have six pets: two horses, two donkeys and two dogs.

But that morning, April 20, Murty was missing.

“I just absolutely panicked,” Carter said, explaining there were “signs of struggle” in the barn, including items knocked off a shelf, mats flipped over on the ground and fresh dirt on the floor. She also spotted bear tracks.

“I was sure a bear took him,” Carter said. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Murty has been killed.’ ”

Carter, a retired nurse, and her husband Jerry, a retired psychiatrist, started searching their property, and then into the surrounding wooded area. They have lived there in the small town of Lanesborough for nearly 11 years.

“There was not a trace,” Carter said.

They called 911, and local police arrived, as well as Lanesborough Animal Control and Massachusetts Environmental Police.

“This was like a crime scene. They had flashlights; they were looking in the barn for any hair or blood,” Carter said.

Officers told the Carters that Murty was likely still alive since they didn’t see blood in the barn.

“But I just couldn’t imagine Murty running away,” Carter said. She and her husband rescued Murty – whom they think is in his early 20s – about 13 years ago. They believe he was abused before they took him in.

“He’s very traumatized, very distrustful, very skittish,” Carter said, noting that he can sometimes be “feisty” with other animals. But with her, “he is just a sweetheart.”

The Carters and local officials searched for Murty until dark. Friends and neighbors put their Easter plans on pause to help.

“Everybody was in the woods looking for Murty,” Carter said.

Karen Gold, who lives on a neighboring property, saw a Facebook post from Lanesborough Animal Control about Murty, and she and her husband went looking right away. Their grandchildren also drove around the area searching for him.

“Any of us who have ever had any pets or are animal lovers, your heart just breaks thinking about them being lost and frightened,” Gold said.

Bill Matthiesen and his wife, Liz Stell, who live next to the Carters, were part of a neighborhood group that divided up to cover as much ground as possible.

“I think something like this really brings people together,” Matthiesen said.

Darren Derby, an officer with Pittsfield Police Department, also joined the effort after seeing a Facebook post. Although he works in a neighboring municipality, he lives in Lanesborough.

“It was Easter Sunday, I was off, and I was like, ‘I might as well give it a shot,’ ” Derby said. “It’s just a donkey to some people, but this is their family pet. I would want somebody to do the same for me.”

Derby used a drone to try to track down the donkey that day, but didn’t have any luck. The Carters were growing increasingly concerned.

“I just kept getting up all night looking outside for Murty, hoping he would come home,” Carter said. “I was losing any hope as the hours ticked by.”

The next morning, Derby went out again with his drone, and the Carters took their other donkey, Charly, to the top of a hill where they thought Murty might be. Murty and Charly are best friends, Carter said, “and we were hoping that the other donkey might start calling for Murty.

That plan didn’t work.

Then, around 5:30 p.m., after another day of searching for Murty, Derby spotted the donkey with his drone. Murty was in the woods about a mile from the Carters’ property.

“I was ecstatic; it was like finding a needle in a haystack,” Derby said. “He was on his back rolling around, having a good time.”

Derby called Animal Control and also got in touch with the Carters.

“I screamed, I was so happy,” said Carter, who dashed out with her husband to get Murty. “He is so skittish, there is nobody else I trusted to get him.”

She brought carrots, Murty’s favorite snack. Carter said she shed a few tears of relief to see Murty safe, and immediately gave him a back rub. She put a harness on him and led him out of the woods.

When they got home, “we popped a bottle of champagne,” Carter said. She also started installing an electric fence around the perimeter of the barn to prevent bears from getting in.

The Carters are still not sure what caused Murty to go missing, but they’ve revised their theory.

Since Murty was unscathed (aside from a small scrape on his nose), “my whole idea has changed,” Carter said. “We think he jumped out of his stall to go after the bear to protect the other horses, and that he was the attacker, not the attackee. We think he actually just chased the bear and ended up getting lost.”

In any case, Murty is back.

Although Murty’s escape was stressful, Carter said, the way her community rallied to find him was heartening.

“I could not believe the outpouring of care and support and help from so many people who didn’t even know this donkey,” she said. “We’re lacking humanity in this time, and what I witnessed was just amazing.”