Great story, but I a skeptical. I am very familiar with the area, and it seems unlikely that this really happened.
The idea that the dog “followed its owner’s scent”, seems absurd. Did the owner WALK 2 miles to the hospital? If the owner rode in a car, even the finest Bloodhound couldn’t track his scent, much less a Husky.
That said, if the dog rode in the car when the owner was originally taken to the hospital, I could believe that he might have remembered the route. It looks like only one turn is required to get from the house to the hospital and sense of direction is a strength of sled dogs.
Dogs can be spooky.
I nearly died in a horse accident in 1981 and my Dobermann was the only -honest- witness.
From across the field, he watched from his kennel while the ambulance hauled me away.
My grandmother said he howled, softly and forlornly for the whole 11 days I was in a coma.
[and he never howled before that or after]
She told me she didn’t need anybody to call her and tell I’d woken up because suddenly, he stopped howling, walked from the side of the kennel where he’d witnessed the accident and went to the front of the kennel, which faced our driveway.
She watched him stand there, stock still, nose poked through the wire and wagging his nub for 3 hours.
[I’d woke up, asked for food and was discharged within two hours]
When I got home, he was going berserk with joy and knocked me flat, kissing and licking my face.
They expected me to die in that hospital and truly, I don’t know ‘where I was’ during the coma..I was very close to dead, though.
That dog “knew”.
And the Dobe I have now will wake up and start watching out the window the second I start my journey home from town.
I have a CC camera in the living room that has recorded this endless times and a network camera that I can check on the dogs via iPhone when I’m on longer trips.
Without fail, as soon as I start the return trip, he begins his vigil at the window.
I have no idea how he “knows”.
So it’s just radar love.
:)