Louisiana: Dog deemed a hero after finding missing toddler

LOUISIANA -- A mother and a community is resting easy just days after a missing boy was found safe. The remarkable rescue is all thanks to an unlikely hero.

You can't miss three-year-old Eli Alcock. Even in a crowd… his little voice sticks out.

It's a sound his mother Lindsy thought she'd never hear again after he went missing Tuesday night.

"Imagining never seeing him again...never hearing him again. Just the reality of what was happening...I mean it was hard," she said.

Drowning in fear and desperate for help Alcock turned to the community.

"That's when we kind of started freaking out and called the sheriff's department and got on Facebook and asked people to come and help and look," she added.

Doug Downs said he wasn't far from home when he got a call asking him to step in.

"And asked me if Honey who is, you know, she's been tracking deer with her for three years asked me if she would do anything," Downs said.

With her keen sense of smell his hunting dog Honey has quite the reputation. Though Downs admits the idea was a long shot, he dropped everything. He and Honey were determined to help any way they could.

"The pressure was on because you're asked to come do something that you've never done before," Downs said.

After hours of searching finally came the moment the mother and the community had been praying for. Little Eli was found safe in the woods.

"Of course I was ecstatic,” Alcock said. “I was thanking God and it was so amazing...everybody was hugging.”

Downs, a local pastor, believes it was more than just luck on their side.

 

“The good Lord was watching over us that night,” Downs said. “He showed up and He showed out and He showed up through a four-legged dog and He showed us his power that night and that's really where all the credit it due."

Eli's mother says the toddler doesn't remember much about what happened that night but she does plan to tell him… when he's older… how Honey saved his life.

(KPLC - Feb 29, 2016)