Passerby rescues freezing dog at Hastings school

Workman Waylon Yeo was taking a shortcut across the back yard of Hastings Middle School on a frigid morning in January when his eye caught something white moving by a school warm-air exhaust vent.

Looking closer, he saw a scruffy little dog.

"He was cold and shivery and scared. He whined like crazy and tried to get away, but he was unable to get up. He couldn't move his hind legs. They were frozen to the ground," said Yeo, who was upgrading security cameras on school doors.

"I couldn't just let it sit there," said Yeo, 32, who owns a hunting dog.

He zipped back inside, got a cup of warm water and poured it on the dog's frozen back paws to free them. Then he wrapped the dog, a Lhasa Apso with long matted hair, in a coat and took it to the school office. Secretary Linde Raway borrowed some biscuits from the school therapy dog and gave them to the shivering dog, which devoured them and lapped up some water.

"He was hungry," said Yeo, who lives near Willmar.

That was the beginning of Fozzy Bear's journey to a much warmer place.

The dog yelped and licked its thawing paws as it lay on an old sweatshirt in the school office. After checking for anyone missing a dog, police drove the lost canine to the local shelter, Shamrock Animal Hospital in Rosemount, said Hastings Police Chief Paul Schnell.

Police eventually located the dog's owners, who hadn't filed a missing dog report. The Hastings couple said the dog, a male, had run away at least a month earlier. They didn't want him back because he had nipped at one of their children, Schnell said.

Shamrock workers christened the wayward pooch Fozzy Bear, said Carrie Davis, who supervises dogs impounded by area police. Workers shaved off his matted hair so they could wash him. Fozzy was neutered and brought up-to-date on his shots.

"He had a tough little run while he was on the lam," Davis said. "He was nervous and scared, but he was very sweet." She said Fozzy, about 18 months old, didn't get frostbite, which seldom happens to a dog's paws. She noted that Lhasa Apsos originated in Tibet. The furry canines guarded monks in monasteries.

After a local TV station aired a story about the dog, calls started rolling in at Shamrock. The callers included a Bloomington couple, whose dogs Shamrock vets had treated.

"After 10 minutes at the clinic he adopted us," said Svea, 67, watching Fozzy in the kitchen of their home. "There is not a mean bone in him."

Her husband said Fozzy seemed afraid and whined loudly when taken outside for the first few days. But now he goes out by himself in their fenced backyard not far from the Minnesota River. Fozzy still whines about soreness from his neutering surgery, Ingolf Ernst said as he watched Fozzy licking the sore spot.

"He's not playful yet, but that will come," added Svea.

The couple said they moved here from Denmark 21 years ago and ran Blackey's, a Danish bakery in northeast Minneapolis, for 13 years before selling it and eventually retiring.

Fozzy is a new pal for Perky, 10, who seemed depressed and hadn't eaten well since their 16-year-old dog Jolly died in late December, the couple said.