Face of Nation : When Lauren Dunlop’s car had spun off a remote highway in northern Quebec and rolled several times, her first thought was for her passenger, a beloved mutt named Binou.
“I climbed out the window and started looking for him in the car, and he wasn’t there,” Dunlop said in a recent interview.
Binou had been Dunlop’s constant companion since she adopted him last year. In the Cree community of Nemaska, Que., a community more than 1,000 kilometres north of Montreal where Dunlop teaches, the two were rarely seen apart. At the crash site, first responders tried to tend to Dunlop. But she waved them off and ran down the road looking for her dog. Binou was nowhere to be found. It was July 3. Dunlop had left Nemaska earlier that day to make the 15-hour drive to her parents’ home in Shelburne, Ont., about 100 kilometres northwest of Toronto.
As Dunlop frantically searched for Binou along the highway, two truck drivers pulled over and told her they had seen a dog running but weren’t sure where he went. They urged Dunlop to see a doctor because they were concerned she might be in shock.
Dunlop, 27, was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Amos, Que., and kept there overnight as she was treated for road rash and several cuts and bruises. When she was released, her parents convinced her to stick to her plan and visit them.
