By A family dog in Folsom, Louisiana, named Artemis, has been labeled a hero after he protected two little girls who wandered off their rural property and got lost in the woods for four hours.
CBS reported that when Abigail and Cecilia Bourg went missing in the woods behind their home, their parents were frantic. Now, Artemis, the Bourg family dog, is being hailed a hero.
“I just start like running around the whole property — six acres — and that’s when I called [my husband] and said, ‘They’re gone,'” Mary Bourg said.
Police and neighbors searched for the girls for four hours, until someone heard Artemis barking.
Mary Bourg said that when the search team got close, Artemis, “wasn’t letting them by the girls.” He was circling them, growling at the people to protect them,” she said.
Local news reported, “At 9:30 p.m., deputies said the girls and their dog were found safe. The sheriff’s office shared video Tuesday showing the moment the girls were reunited with their family.
‘Overall, so so blessed and so grateful that they did come home last night. That they did get found quickly. In the grand scheme of things pretty quickly. In our minds at the time it wasn’t so quick,’ said Mary Bourg, the mother of the two girls.”
Later, the mother of the two girls also gave more insight to how Artemis protected Abigail and Cecilia. She posted the story on Facebook: “Shortly after the police arrived at our house, I posted in our local Folsom group to ask the community to keep alert. I immediately started getting dozens of messages and calls from locals who were offering to come help search. I couldn’t think straight at the time and couldn’t even tell you who I was responding to or what I was saying.
Rooster Cowart was one of the first people to reach out. He simply said, “I can help. Can I get an address?”
I sent him my address and didn’t hear anything else from him until I got a call from him at 9:12pm and a message that said, “Found them”. I didn’t see this message until the next day and had no idea it wasn’t the police to first locate them.
I finally got the full story from him (and the others that found them) yesterday.
Rooster entered the woods from a different highway and started following a creek until he thought he heard the girls. He was then chased out by a wild hog (thank Jesus Artemis was protecting our girls from those dangerous things 😣). He also was suspicious of the hog being “so nervous” and assumed our dog and girls must have been close by. He went back to his truck to get his gun and find others to help.”
On Facebook, Mary thanked everyone for their help in finding her missing girls. She said, “Our babies are home safe!! We CANNOT thank everyone enough for all the search forces, support, and prayers. We had an army physically and spiritually standing for our family. Our hearts are so so full of love and gratitude for the immediate support from our community and others areas too. We even had other countries lifting our family up in prayer.
We had volunteer search crews, ATV’s, drones, helicopters, dogs, cars, and even a 25-person horse crew was prepared to search. They were found deep in the heavy woods and it was DARK.
Y’all, God is so good. Our 4 year old is pretty shaken (she’s okay though!) but I know the Holy Spirit brought so much peace to our 7 year old. She said she knew they would be found and she knew to just stay put.
Also, so grateful for our hero Artemis, our golden retreiver. The helicopter first spotted some movement and sent a search crew in their direction. And then Artemis heard people coming and started barking making it much easier to find them. He even growled at the police at first because he was protecting our babies.
Every highway in the area was lined with hundreds of people to search. Y’all I have hundreds of calls and messages from people asking how they can help and telling me that they’re praying for us. I can’t get to everyone to say thank you. Friends, family, and even pastors from our church just started showing up at our house to help and pray with us.”
She included a picture of the two girls snuggling up to their hero.
Even after a few days, Artemis wouldn’t let the girls out of her sight.
Good boy.
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