NewsNation/World

Actions

Active serviceman’s dog found safe after escaping foster home 2 months ago

Posted at 9:41 PM, Aug 05, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-06 10:36:22-04

Denver, CO (KDVR) — David Powell will never forget the feeling of losing something so precious.

“It was rough,” Powell said. “Here’s somebody that put their dogs into my care, so that they could go off to Iraq for us, and I lost his dog.”

Powell was fostering two miniature schnauzer puppies for Herman Haynie, going on his fifth tour to Iraq, through People + Animals = Companions Together (PACT). Almost two months ago, one of those puppies, Lola, slipped through his fence in northwest Denver.

“Me and my neighbor started running the neighborhood,” Powell said. “I felt guilty if I wasn’t doing something to try to find her.”

Powell even hired a pet detective, which used dogs to track Lola’s scent to a local park around the corner. Powell says the detective’s hound lost the scent, as if Lola disappeared into thin air.

Powell was finally relieved of that guilt Saturday morning when he got a call from Save This Life, a pet microchip company. Someone took Lola to a vet across town in Green Valley Ranch — about 15 miles east of Powell’s home –and the company saw that Powell was the caretaker. Powell says he immediately got Lola’s information and drove to pick her up.

“I knew it was her,” Powell said. “It was just kind of those dark eyes and just the way she… her demeanor and stuff, like, that’s Lola.”

Powell says he’s regretted every time he had to send an email update to Haynie saying he’s still searching for Lola. Now, he finally had good news.

“He was ecstatic,” Powell said of Haynie’s reaction. “It was just by email but it still, it was such a huge relief for him. Since she’s back, I’ve gone along the fence and if there’s any gaps, I’m digging down and shoving rocks under the fence to make sure there are no more gaps. I can’t go through that again. It’s just too heart-wrenching.”