The puppy Athena, who was involved in a car accident near Woodward June 8, was found Monday and returned to her ecstatic owner, according to someone familiar with the story of the lost dog.
“From what I understand, she finally came to somebody,” said Tracy Knapp, lost-dog expert at AHeinz57 pet rescue in De Soto. “They took it to the vet, and the vet called the owners.”
Athena was first spotted Friday morning near the accident scene, Knapp said, in the vicinity of 170th Street and Upland Avenue.
“Dogs usually do stay near the accident site,” she said. “We had a live trap ready to go,” and AHeinz57 volunteer Travis Parsons was prepared to launch a drone to search for Athena.
“Then we got the good news,” Knapp said.
She said dogs “can go for quite a while without food because they’ll eat a stick or grass or a pine cone or something like that, or they can smell dead road kill, like a bunny or a rabbit or something, but just like humans, they can’t go a long time without water. So there must have been some little water source or a puddle.”
Knapp said Athena lost a little weight and suffered some sunburn and will need to readjust to a regular feeding plan “and will be just fine.” She recommends collars with IDs, microchips “and never give up.”
Athena must have summoned all the instincts her breeding and few months of life gave her and pulled through.
“Dogs, no matter what age, they really go back to their wolf-like instincts and know how to survive,” Knapp said.
Good news and happy endings can be rare. As the AHeinz57 announcement about Athena said, “Her family thanks you for all of your shares and cares and prayers.”
With all the chaos, insanity and sadness poisoning the planet with grief, this reunion brings a little bit of cheer to the heart. It rekindles the pilot light of the soul and lets us know love will always have its way.