A mother Rottweiler and her four puppies follow Butte County Search and Rescue's Trevor Skaggs to the waiting helicopter of Butte County helicopter pilot Conner Smith, during the Park Fire, near Chico, Calif. on Saturday, July 27, 2024. (courtesy of Butte County Sheriff's Office)
Rottweiler puppies rescued by helicopter from the Park Fire with a mother dog have been reunited with their owners, who gave one of them to the animal-evacuation leader whose group has been saving pets and livestock from the blaze.
Ashley Archer, leader of evacuations for Chico-based North Valley Animal Disaster Group, named her family’s new puppy Skaggs in honor of Trevor Skaggs, a Butte County Search and Rescue training officer who was airlifted by helicopter into the fire area, ran 1.5 miles down a steep canyon, and returned to the chopper leading a mother dog and four puppies who made it through the firestorm in a roadside clearing.
Skaggs the puppy has “made himself right at home” on the two-acre Sacramento-area ranch where Archer, 35, lives with her daughters Lacey, 11 and Makayla, 14, plus two horses, six goats, three cats, a Basset hound and a German shepherd.
“He’s doing really well,” Archer said Friday. “He thinks he’s this giant dog, so he’s got this huge bark. He’s just not afraid of anything, and why would he be? He’s a survivor.”
After Trevor Skaggs’ dramatic dog rescue, initial reports indicated a mother dog, father dog and five puppies had been left in a pickup truck by a woman fleeing for her life the first night of the Park Fire. The male dog was reportedly found dead, along with a puppy.
It turns out the adult dogs were a female named Bertha, and her grown female offspring, plus three puppies from each adult, Archer said. Bertha was alive, but the other adult dog perished, and two puppies remain missing, Archer said.
The dogs belonged to a couple from the area of Cohasset, a hamlet where homes burned. The woman of the couple had fled the flames in a white Chevrolet Silverado truck that broke down in darkness along a remote road, and she had to leave the dogs behind to jump into another escaping vehicle, Archer said.
Bertha and the four puppies had been cared for by the rescue group and were returned to the couple July 29. Catching sight of the owners, Bertha “turned into a puppy,” Archer said.
“She was jumping around, she was on her back, she was giving kisses,” Archer said. “It’s very, very clear that these dogs were very loved.”
The female owner was torn between joy at seeing the dogs she thought she would never see again, and sorrow over the dead adult and two missing pups, Archer said.
“She was just having an overwhelming mix of emotions,” Archer said.
Archer and her daughters had been talking about getting a puppy, but had not considered a Rottweiler. Her experience with Bertha and the puppies prompted her to tell the owners, who breed Rottweilers, that she might get in touch later about a puppy. The rescued puppies, all around 10 or 12 weeks old, were spoken for, the owners mentioned. But later the couple came back and said they would refund one of their customers, and Archer could have a puppy.
“All of a sudden it went from them crying to me crying,” Archer said.
At Archer’s ranch, Skaggs the puppy is getting to know the lay of the land, and the people and animals that share it.
“He met our goats. He met our horses. Our Basset hound loves him,” Archer said. “Despite us buying him all kinds of toys, his favorite toy is a water bottle, just a disposable water bottle that he found. He carries it around everywhere he goes.”
For Archer, who also led animal-rescue operations during the devastating 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people in Paradise just east of the Park Fire, little Skaggs “is like a visual reminder of why we do what we do.”
Originally published at Ethan Baron