Smart and fast, Smilla is a survivor. Half a world away from her home, she’s also too scared to come in from the cold.

Smilla is a mixed husky Iditarod racing dog who broke out of her crate on March 10, when she and her team were traveling from Alaska. She has led would-be rescuers from Fall City to Preston and back over the last six weeks.

Smilla’s pursuers have come tantalizingly close to catching her, only to have her flee back into the valley’s wilds.

Jim Branson, president of the nonprofit Missing Pet Partnership, came within five feet of grabbing Smilla last week.

“Lots of people have tried to help her,” he says. “But the more people that try to help her, the more she runs.”

Saving Smilla is going to take a whole new strategy.

In a downpour, Carl Jelstrup heads to Fall City Community Park to see if Smilla has finally been trapped.

But Jelstrup, the local representative of the sled dog’s owner, was very doubtful that Smilla can be caged. A 10-year resident of Fall City, and a chiropractor and naturopathic physician in Bellevue, Jelstrup has searched for Smilla since she escaped from his driveway, and knows the dog better than anyone else in the valley.

Jelstrup grew up in the remote, wild area of central Norway, where Smilla comes from. This winter, he was asked by a longtime friend, farmer Anna Vorgen, to help sled dog musher and owner Silvia Furtwangler during her journey through Washington en route to the Iditarod.

Joining the expeditions as team doctor, Jelstrup came to see Furtwangler as a professional, considerate dog handler.

“She is an incredible, neat lady, phenomenal with animals,” Jelstrup told the Snoqualmie Valley Record. “She is a true wilderness lady.”

Furtwangler’s race came to an abrupt end, about 300 miles into the 1,100-mile journey. Jelstrup said some of the dogs were sick, and Furtwangler also had sled trouble. She arrived back in Washington in the middle of the night, off-loading dogs in crates into Jelstrup’s truck for the trip to Fall City.

“Unfortunately, she put a couple extra dogs into a cage to make it speedier,” Jelstrup said. “We got here, the cage explodes, and out rush the dogs. We caught two. Number three, gone. It was a logistic blunder.

“We’ve now spent weeks running after Smilla,” Jelstrup added. “She always wins.”

Smilla weighs about 50 pounds, and has a collar and tags. Capable of running 100 miles a day, she’s very shy of people and other dogs. Smilla is a Norwegian name that comes from ‘smile.’ Many know the name from the film “Smilla’s Sense of Snow.”

The dog has been spotted at places as far apart as the Twin River Golf Course, Fall City Fire Station, Preston’s I-90 interchange and a home near the Raging River Community Church.

According to Branson, Smilla’s behavior is typical, but the range of her wanderings isn’t.

“We find that when dogs are on the run, they stay away from everybody, even their owners,” he said. “They won’t come when called,” even by the owner. “It’s just the mindset they get into.”

Branson said that Missing Pet Partnership has helped recover dogs who have been loose for as long as a year. It’s much too early to give up hope.

“She’s learned where to find food,” Branson. “She’s got lots of water, and she’s developed a strategy for being safe in traffic. She’s learned that, and managed to survive this far.”

With much of the Fall City and Preston community watching for Smilla, Jelstrup has been touched and impressed by the help he has received, and the calls that he gets daily.

The Pet Partnership even set up a web site for her.

Still, without her owner, Smilla can’t find anyone she trusts.

“She’s a hard-wired runner, and she has now turned feral,” Jelstrup said. He thinks it may come to a darting, a step of last resort.

“I saw a little limp on her, now,” Jelstrup said. “She can only do this so long.”

“We want people to not try to catch her,” Branson said. “We’re going to have to outsmart her.”

UPDATE:

Smilla was caught Sunday afternoon (April 29) after she was spotted and followed around the Twin Rivers Golf Course for about four hours. Rescuers added a sedative to some food. After several failed attempts to approach her, rescuers threw a net over her. She is safe.