For 45 days, one sheep outran a whole town. The American Blackbelly sheep that slipped loose in Wadsworth and stayed on the lam for more than six weeks was finally caught on Wednesday, Nov. 11 — roped from horseback by a 14-year-old rider and her 18-year-old horse, according to the New York Post’s account of the rescue, which credited the Akron Beacon Journal’s reporting.
The roper, Reagan Crumpler, had tried to catch the sheep before without success. This time, mounted on her horse Catalena, she spent hours working to get close, only to watch the sheep turn away each time she neared, the Post reported. As she began to lose hope, she urged the horse on — and, she recalled in the Post’s account, Catalena kicked into high gear, got in front of the sheep, and gave her the throw she needed.
The chase had become a community project long before Wednesday. Whispering Acres Farm Animal Sanctuary owner Janine Smalley and volunteer Rebecca Roxberry launched a Facebook campaign to bring the sheep in safely, and over the 45 days the animal was spotted repeatedly while volunteers, the sheriff’s department and even aerial drones joined the effort to return her to safety, the Post reported.
“The people of Wadsworth, they were so helpful,” Roxberry told News 5 Cleveland, in remarks carried in the Post’s account. Roxberry said she had worried about the sheep getting hurt: “I just didn’t want to see her get hurt. I love animals, all animals, and I was like, ‘Oh, we gotta do something.'” When the sheep was finally caught, she said, everyone shed tears: “We actually can breathe because she is safe.”
The sheep has been named Gerri Reagan, in honor of the teen who roped her, and she is doing well on a 72-hour hold at Whispering Acres Farm Animal Sanctuary, the Post reported. No owner has come forward; if none does, the sanctuary will keep her as a permanent resident.
For Crumpler, the ending was the reward. “It made me feel really good, just knowing that the sheep was gonna go to somewhere that they would take care of it and it would get the best life,” she said in the Post’s account, “and also just knowing that I could help out and just make a lot of people happy.”
What happens next is simple and, for once, slow: Gerri Reagan settles in at the sanctuary while the hold runs, and a town that spent 45 days scanning fields and roadsides for a runaway sheep gets to retire the search.
Photo: Photograph by Mike Peel, CC BY-SA