Two Little Girls Go Missing — And Their Pit Bull Never Leaves Their Side
They were found nine hours later. Their dog had kept them safe.
Four-year-old twin girls Adele and Elisabetta were out with their family in Udine, Italy, this week when they went missing — and so many people spent hours looking for them.
When it got dark out, people got even more worried about them. When local resident Alexei Coianiz heard about the missing girls, he knew he had to help. By that time, it was 11 p.m., and the girls were still nowhere to be found. He and a friend, Francesco, started out driving, keeping their eyes and ears open. There was a traffic jam in the town because of how many people were out looking for Adele and Elisabetta.
Alexei and Francesco decided the search would be easier out of the car. As they walked on foot, they joined up with a stranger, Silvio, who said that he felt it was his duty to look for the girls because he's a father. Together, they went into the woods with flashlights.
"We walk along repeatedly calling the two girls, but nothing," Alexei wrote on Facebook. "The woods are very dense and our torches are almost useless."
They finally arrived at a small building, hoping the girls were inside, but it turned out to be empty. So they kept walking. And finally, after an hour of searching, they heard a reply to their calls.
"We're here! We're hungry! Come!" a little voice said.
When the searchers shined their flashlights in the direction of the voices, they saw a pit bull with her back to them. This was how they met Margot, Adele and Elisabetta's dog, who kept them safe for the nearly nine hours they were lost.
"She immediately started running towards us, licking us and facendoci le feste (as we say in Italy)," Alexei told The Dodo. "At the moment I found them I was really calm and focused on what to do next, which was making sure they were healthy and make them comfortable."
Even as rescuers covered the girls in their sweatshirts to warm them up and went to alert the other parts of the search party, Margot stayed as close as possible to her girls.
"Francesco and I stay with the twins and the dog who doesn't want to move," Alexei wrote. "[She] has to protect her children."
After Margot and her girls were reunited with their family, Alexei, Francesco and Silvio went back to their cars and drove home with a story they won't soon forget.
"What can I say?" Alexei wrote. "A story to tell your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
