A 2-year-old girl who walked barefoot more than three miles with her family’s two dogs was found sleeping off a wooded Michigan trail using the smaller dog as a pillow, authorities said.
Troopers were called after a toddler, Thea Chase, had wandered away from the home in a small town about a mile east of Wisconsin’s border in northern Michigan.
Brooke Chase, Thea’s mother, said she had an instinct to check on her daughter who had been playing in the yard, and learned the toddler’s uncle told Thea to go inside because she had no shoes on.
When Brooke realized Thea wasn’t in the house, she began to yell. They searched for about 20 minutes before calling the police.
Around midnight, four hours after police were first notified, a family friend who was searching for Thea, spotted the Chase family’s Rottweiler, Buddy and then Thea was discovered a short way off the trail, sleeping on the ground with her head on top of Hartley, the family’s English Springer.
When Thea was returned home on the back of the ATV, the child was giggling and saying, “Hi, Mommy,” Brooke said.