Three year old Jaylynn Thorpe was playing with five puppies at his baby sitter’s house in Virginia on Friday afternoon. He wandered a mile off into the nearby woods with two of the dogs at around 4:30 pm. A massive search was set up across a three and a half mile radius with over 250 people helping with the hunt for the boy. Temperatures dropped to 17 degrees that night and people feared the worst. At 12:35 pm on Saturday, after 20 hours missing, Jaylynn was found under some leaves with the dogs snuggled up against him. He was transported to a nearby hospital and was said to be hungry but fine. The dogs helped keep him warm and may have saved his life:

Hope was fading fast when searchers for Jaylynn Thorpe, the three-year child who went missing overnight in sub-freezing temperatures, found the child sitting on a log in the woods, two puppy dogs at his side.

The good news came around 12:35 p.m. Saturday, culminating a 20-hour search that drew on the efforts of some 250 emergency services personnel and volunteers. Young Jaylynn had wandered off from his babysitter’s home near the woods of Buckshoal Road around 4:30 p.m. Friday, and search teams had been unable to find the boy despite combing the woods near the babysitter’s home.

Then, suddenly, after thousands of man-hours and a painstaking hunt in a three-and-a-half mile radius around the home, there the child was, “cold and hungry,” said Halifax County Sheriff Stanley Noblin, but otherwise fine.

The youngster escaped the incident “without even a sniffle,” Noblin said.
Authorities believe the child may have been saved by two puppies who stuck to his side throughout the ordeal. Jaylynn apparently was playing with five puppies at the home of his babysitter, a relative, when he wandered off into the woods with the pups.

Three of the dogs returned at some point, leaving two puppies who were found with the youngster on Saturday.

Jaylynn’s uncle, Michael Elliott of South Boston, said the puppies cuddled with Jaylynn to keep him warm through the night. The child also slept under a cover of leaves, further helping to ward off the cold.

“It was a miracle, and I’m glad it came out the best way,” he said. “There aren’t many kids who could come through that with the temperature like [it was],” said Elliott.

Temperatures fell to 17 degrees during the night, Noblin said, but the youngster told searchers that he had slept that night with his two puppies close to him. “They (the puppies) probably saved his life,” the Sheriff said.

[From The News Record, thanks to Daisy424 for the tip]

His mother said that when she first saw him he told her “Momma, I got cold. I slept in the woods last night. The puppies kept me warm.” That’s a touching story and thank goodness that little boy is ok. There’s a newscast of this story you can view online on local channel ABC 13. The community really pulled together in the search for this little boy.

In related puppy news, have you been watching the Shiba Inu puppy cam? Thousands watched those adorable dogs grow up and now they’re going to new homes. As of this post, there are just three puppies sleeping sweetly in their bed. They’re all cuddled up together too. Here’s a screenshot (one is off camera).