6 Years Later, Young “Dog Whisperer” Comes To The Rescue Again

When it came to catching Daisy, a rescue dog who had run away from her new home, many tried but none succeeded. For three months in the fall of 2016, a clearly skittish Daisy eluded countless attempts by experienced rescuers to bring her off the streets of Hollister.

That is until Daisy met her match in the form of a six-year-old dog "whisperer" named Meghan Topping.

At the time, Meghan and her mother, Karen, ran a dog rescue operation out of their home in Morgan Hill. Daisy, the elusive shepherd mix, had spent a few weeks there before being placed in a “forever home.” Unfortunately, forever turned into just a couple of weeks when Daisy scaled a fence and went on the lam.

Daisy was on the run for months before someone reached out to Karen and Meghan, hoping they might be able to work some magic. The pair arrived in town and discovered Daisy sitting in a field.

Without consulting her mother, Meghan jumped out of the truck and entered the field, settling down roughly 20 yards from Daisy. As Karen recorded video from her phone, Meghan and Daisy slowly crept ever closer together until, ultimately, Daisy succumbed to Meghan’s charms and allowed herself to be touched.

“I’m so proud of my girl,” Karen said while recording. At the time, Meghan said she was just following Daisy’s lead, “She told me what to do. You can talk to dogs in your brain.”

It was a one-of-a-kind rescue. Until it happened again.

One day last month, Meghan, now twelve, used her dog whispering skills once again in a nearly identical encounter.

Megan and Karen now live in Yreka in Siskiyou County. They work with Rescue Ranch, running a sanctuary and adoption center for hundreds of dogs. It is not a place, however, where someone can surrender a dog. When a couple showed up recently to do just that, they were given information on where they could go. The couple had other ideas.

 “When they went back out to their car, they decided to leave the dog in the parking lot and take off down the driveway,” Karen said. “The dog started to chase their car down towards the highway.”  

Staff members were able to stop Sage from reaching the highway but the dog was now trapped and frightened in the middle of a field.

Sound familiar?

“It looked exactly the same,” Karen said.

Meghan motioned for the adults nearby to stay and away and began to work her whispering magic, although there was no “talking” with Sage.

“It's definitely not psychic. It's learning how to control your heart rate and your breathing and how to perfect it to be able to bring your energy level and heart rate down because they will match your heart rate,” Meghan said.

Meghan began approaching Sage. A few steps in, Sage growled. With Sage in full “flight or fight” mode, the encounter could turn sideways in an instant. Still, Meghan kept at it, inching ever closer.

“When I got two, three feet away from her, I sat quietly and I literally felt her energy go from tense, hard, scared to relaxed,” Meghan said. “And then she came right up to me and let me catch her without a problem.”

Karen, just like six years ago with Daisy, was recording the entire sequence from a distance. When Meghan began calmly walking with Sage she can be heard saying, “Way to go Whisperer.”