"Bailey" is back home safely thanks to Bunsen and Beaker (Photo from Twitter video @bunsenbernerbmd)

By Brody Langager

pawsitive ending

Red Deer’s famous science dogs help four-legged friend in distress

Feb 27, 2021 | 1:11 PM

Red Deer’s most famous dogs helped out one of their own last weekend.

Bunsen, a three-and-a-half-year-old Bernese Mountain Dog, and Beaker, a one-year-old Golden Retriever, were on a walk with owners Jason and Kris Zackowski when Bunsen went off the trail on a mission.

Zackowski says this has happened before, so he didn’t think much of it at first.

“I’m like, oh no, he’s found a moose leg or something like that. Because that was the big deal a year ago, is that we found eight moose legs,” he recalled.

Zackowski says Bunsen wouldn’t listen when he was called, so he had to go after him. What he found wasn’t quite what he’d expected.

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“He was just standing next to a dog, a dog that was obviously in distress up against a tree trunk.”

The distressed dog didn’t have a collar, so Jason and Kris took their dogs back to the house, as they weren’t too sure if the stranded dog was safe. Jason went back with his son, a backpack full of food, leashes and a blanket.

“We knew it was in distress. I got the leash over top of it and it couldn’t stand up. And it was really hungry, so I worked up with giving it food until it could trust me.”

Zackowski’s son ran back to the house, got some rope and a sled to help move the dog, and carefully brought it back home.

“We wanted to help this dog because we didn’t know if it was going to make it, or how sick it was, and it’s eyes were cloudy.”

The Zackowskis found a Facebook page shortly after that showed a similar looking dog that was missing. Sure enough that was the dog they had found. The owners were called and the dog was taken back home shortly after.

Apparently, the rescued dog suffers from epilepsy and couldn’t wear a collar as it could get caught on its crate if it had a seizure.

“I’m so glad Bunsen found that dog, it would not have made it. I just can’t imagine going on a walk the next day and finding a dead dog, it would have just been heartbreaking.”

And as for the reward for the hero, Zackowski says, “I did a post and people are very concerned about how we’re going to reward Bunsen. So, in the lore of Bunsen, when he is a very good boy he gets Waffle Mountain, which is a giant stack of waffles with bacon on top.”

Zackowski says the main message he wants to convey to their audience after this story is, “I think if you can help, do it. We had a series of plans in place if we couldn’t get the dog. I was willing to camp in the cold with the dog. I put myself in the shoes of what if that’s my dog, like what if Bunsen or Beaker got lost? I would want somebody who found them to treat it like the most special thing on the planet. And that’s what I think that everybody’s dogs are to them. They are part of your family.”

Bunsen and Beaker, famous for their many entertaining science experiments, have a Twitter account (@bunsenbernerbmd) with over 80,000 followers from around the world.