Conclusion: Dog Found in the Ditch Goes Home

By isak, May 27, 2009

I am happy to report that the dog found laying in the ditch after being hit by a car has been returned to the woman who originally owned him more than eight months ago. Upon arriving back home, Robeaux ran around his yard, then settled into the spot where he always laid as a baby. After greeting him and running around a bit with him, the other two dogs snuggled up with him.

So often we say, “if only they could tell us how they got here.” This is one of those rare few opportunities where you do know a bit about this little dog’s story.

As a puppy, he lived with his siblings in Pearland, about an hour away from here. When Hurricane Ike blew through last September, the fence in his backyard was blown down and the house was damaged. So Robeaux and his siblings where moved to Magnolia to his owner’s mother’s house. Over the following months, the mother found homes for the pups. Robeaux was placed with a family that lived down the road from the mother. They wanted him to be a hunting dog.

The story pretty much stops there. All we know is that the family no longer lives down the road. Did they leave Robeaux behind? Had they given him away? Did he run away? What was he doing out on that highway? No idea.

What we do know is that a woman from out-of-town was driving down the road when she noticed a dog laying in the tall grass of the ditch. He moved his head… and this action caught her eye. So she pulled over to investigate. She found a medium-sized black and brown dog laying in the ditch apparently unable to stand. She brought him some water and some food, both of which he happily accepted eating two bowls of dry kibble and drinking lots of water. While she was standing there, a friend and her husband rode past on their motorcycle. They did not see the dog, but stopped to see if the woman needed some help.

After pondering the situation for a bit, they called me. I loaded some food and water, towels, a thick piece of cardboard and a couple muzzles into the car and headed over. We slid him onto the cardboard and loaded him into my car. I took him to the house of a vet tech who gave him a shot of anti-inflamatory and some pain meds. The next day, he was taken to the vet where they discovered his front leg was broken in four places. The options were: splint him, operate to set the bones or amputate. We opted for splinting figuring that if that did not work, an operation or amputation were still possibilities.

He ran out of two splints. They were no match for this dog’s energy. At this time, his foot still flops a bit when he runs, but it hasn’t slowed him down. So with him up and running again, it was time to renew the search for his owners. There was no response to signs, so Andi ran an ad in the local newspaper.

A woman from Pearland responded thinking the dog described in the ad might be her dog Charlie: small brown and black dog with a camouflage-colored collar. The dog did not respond the being called Charlie, but Andi agreed to meet the woman at her mother’s house anyway.

The dog got out of the car at the mother’s house, wagged his tail at the woman, then kind of sniffed around. Again, he did not respond to the name Charlie. The woman showed Andi photos on her phone of the siblings. One of them, Robeaux, looked exactly like the dog we had rescued… small white spot on the chin, black markings on the muzzle. But all the siblings looked similar.

So feeling like this woman was the proper owner, Andi left the dog with the woman and asked her to call her if things did not work out.

The woman called the next day and told Andi how things went when they got back to her house. After watching his behavior and seeing where he chose to lay down, she realized this was Robeaux, not Charlie.

So this story comes full circle. The young puppy removed from his home by a hurricane has made it back home after eight months. A full life already lived in his first year.

His owner calls it “a miracle.”