Steven Maa was worried his beloved dog wouldn’t survive the night in the Rocky Mountains.
He was driving cross-country to California from New Jersey to start a new job on the West Coast when he stopped for some skiing in Montezuma, Colorado on Dec. 28.
He left his dog Rocky with a local pet sitter, but, instead of relaxing, the mottled brown-and-black pooch soon bolted into the mountains—and a blizzard was rolling into the region which has a local elevation of nearly 10,000 feet (3,000m).
Steven was panicked. He reached out to the town’s mayor, who recommended Summit Lost Pet Rescue, a nonprofit with a near-perfect record of locating lost pets—with more than 200 recoveries in the last year alone.
For Rocky’s challenging case, the Summit search team set up trail cameras and a scent station, which usually includes the owner’s clothes and a comfy dog bed that can draw the animal out of hiding. They also launched a social media campaign that shared Rocky’s pictures.
A few days passed without any sign and temperatures plunged below zero. Steven feared the worst, but then Rocky appeared on one of the trail cams, stirring hope that the duo might be able to soon continue their road trip.
No luck. After spending multiple 16-hour days searching for him, Steven had to make the heartbreaking decision to leave Rocky behind and move ahead to his new job in California.
“I was a little clogged with emotion,” the founder of Summit Lost Pet Rescue, Brandon Ciullo, told PennLive. “I just couldn’t believe we couldn’t find him, and I was disappointed.”
Several weeks went by with no reported sightings and hope was dwindling. How long could a domesticated dog even survive in the wilds of a Rocky Mountain winter? A few weeks? A month?
But then on February 9th, a resident saw an unidentified dog on a household Ring camera. It was Rocky.
Steven confirmed the appearance after recognizing his collar. Then, Brandon and his co-founder Melissa Davis quickly set up a trap with scent trails using Steven’s clothes leading to a cage.
Within three hours, Rocky entered the trap.
Rocky was finally secured—a champion for surviving 43 days—and would soon be reunited with Steven. (Watch the joyous reunion below…)
The dog had lost almost half his body weight, dropping from 50 pounds to just 26. But when he was reunited with Steven, who arrived from California, the dog’s energy rebounded—and tears fell around the room when everyone saw how excited he was to see his family.
“We were just so overjoyed,” Steven said. “And in disbelief that he could survive for that long; (I’m) just extremely proud of him.”
And, after so many weeks fearing they had lost him, Brandon, too, was overcome with emotion: “He’s the only dog I’ve ever cried over.
“It was amazing. It’s what we put hundreds and hundreds of hours into. These reunions are why we do what we do.”
Rocky’s rescue marked the longest number of days a dog had been missing, before being found by the nonprofit Summit Lost Pet Rescue.
The group has a 99% success rate, recovering 213 of 214 lost dogs last year.
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LET’S KEEP ROCKY’S RESCUE PARTY GOING By Sharing This on Social Media…