HELL’S KITCHEN — Freddie Pickles, a Beagle-Jack Russell mix who went missing last week, was found curled up in a warehouse corner at Pier 90, his owner said.
Pickles was recovering from surgery after eating half a tennis ball and was in the care of his owner’s mother-in-law when he slipped his collar and ran towards the Hudson River on Wednesday.
Owner Jeanine Murch and her husband John had combed Hudson River Park for almost 24 hours when a security guard at Pier 90 located the pup deep in the warehouse, Murch said.
“He was hidden back in a little tiny nook between a ramp and a wall, hidden away in this corner, he looked like a little lamb or something,” she told DNAinfo.
Murch and her husband adopted Freddie Pickles around Christmas, after the now 9-month-old was brought over from Puerto Rico by Angels for Animals Network, a New Jersey animal rescue group.
He had just returned from a $6,000 gastrointestinal surgery at the Blue Pearl Vet Hospital March 16, Murch said, after eating the better part of a tennis ball, and Murch’s mother-in-law came in from New Jersey to dog-sit him.
But on a routine pee break near the couples’ apartment on West 57th Street and 11th Avenue, Freddie Pickles made a run for it.
Police and friends helped the couple look for Freddie until 1 a.m. Wednesday, and then again starting at 5 a.m. Thursday. The cold worried Murch, but she thought Pickles might have found a spot to hide away.
“He was a street dog, and I know he has his street dog smarts,” she said.
A security guard named Matt took a flier from the couple Thursday morning and went off in a golf cart looking for Freddie Pickles, they said.
“He just came out and said, ‘Hey, I found your dog,” Murch said.
“My husband and I hadn’t slept for 24 hours.”
The relieved pair followed Matt the security guard and retrieved Freddie Pickles from the spot where he was hiding.
“He was very, very weak and very hungry,” Murch said of the dog. She took him directly to the veterinarian, who said his survival was “kind of a miracle,” according to Murch.
Freddie Pickles is now doing well, she said.
