PLEASANT PLAIN, Ohio (AP) — A woman who works with rescue dogs was reunited with her own dog more than a month after it ran off after being struck by a car.
A caller told Paula Heckathorn a dog had been hanging around his house. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports (http://bit.ly/1eh66Au ) that Jonathon Simonson had lured the dog with some sausages, and then called the phone number on his collar.
Simonson lives in in Wilmington, 22 miles from Heckathorn's home in Pleasant Plain, a small community in Warren County in southwest Ohio.
"When he saw me, he stared at me like he'd seen a ghost," she said. "They let him off the leash and he ran to me, and he was whimpering and crying. We pretty much collapsed on the ground together."
The 9-year-old Australian shepherd, Cody, had darted into the street June 30 while she was moving into her new home. He was hit by a car and ran away.
Heckathorn said Cody helps her in her role as a certified dog rehabilitator. She works with animal shelters to try to train unwanted dogs for adoption to spare them from being euthanized.
She had been checking shelters daily to see if anyone brought Cody in, saturated the area with fliers and searched with volunteers. "It's a miracle and an answered prayer," she said.
She took Cody to a veterinarian, who treated him for a laceration and removed 25 ticks. She said the dog had lost six pounds, and is visibly happy to be home.
