Lost dog joins elementary field trip, then heads home

A gaggle of first graders had a much searched for shadow Friday morning in a 6-year-old sheltie named KC, after the city from which she was taken.

The students from Midland Elementary were on the traditional walking field trip from the new school building to the historic school building a few blocks away when KC came out from the bushes, tailing them the entire way.

“It was the cutest thing,” said Cara Wilson, a parent chaperoning the field trip.

Wilson’s daughter and her friends implored Wilson to call the dog’s owner, which turned out to be a sheltie rescue in Kansas City, Mo. who had been trying to get KC back since KC’s adoptive owner died about eight months ago.

“I’ve been so concerned because not just anybody can have a sheltie,” said Barbara Johnson, president of the Kansas City Sheltie Rescue.

Though deaf, KC is a show quality dog from a champion bloodline, Johnson said. The dog and many of her siblings were given to the rescue after her owners suffered from health problems and could no longer care for their dogs.

KC was homeward bound Friday night with people from the rescue’s network, who will pass KC off to a rescue volunteer somwhere in the middle of Kansas.

The kids don’t know it yet, but they will receive a $100 reward for finding and returning KC.

The two first grade classes will split the reward and vote on how to spend it.

“On Tuesday I’m going to tell them how the story ended. Right now all they know is that I took the dog home,” Wilson said.