Little Dog Lost: (A true feel-good story with doggie pics)

We own property out in the Nevada desert, roughly an hour outside of Montello. There is very little to anything out there. Even Montello, as a town, is barely a town at all with its population of less than 100 people. They do have two bars, though, so they have that going for them.

That's why we like it. No, not the bars. The quiet serene feel of the area.

As my children call the night skies, "It's like our own planetarium!" Out in the middle of this desert oasis, we can look up at the stars and see it all. It's amazing!

So, that's why when our security cameras (motion activated) produced a video of what appeared to be a little black dog on the property, we were confused. Where in the world did he come from? How did he get to our property which is located a good mile or more up a dirt valley road?

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The first video we received came in late on a Monday night. The video was slightly fuzzy and we weren't exactly sure what we were looking at. Eventually, we figured out it was a small dog. (See pic to the left. This is a still shot from one of the videos).

Because our property is nearly four hours away, and as sad as it sounds, we figured the little guy wouldn't make it through the night (sooo many coyotes in the area). If he did survive the night, he could be long gone before we got there. The desert is huge.

Tuesday afternoon, we received another motion activated video. The little dog was still there! He was sticking close by our cabin. Now, we were quite concerned. There wasn't water there. We didn't leave food outside. We tried reaching out to some acquaintances in Montello, to see if we might be able to get some help. Unfortunately, we had no luck getting a hold of anyone. My husband was out of town (he was actually sending me the security videos from New Jersey) and due to life being life, I couldn't go out there to check on the dog . We kept trying to get a hold of someone.

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When another video came in Wednesday afternoon, I knew what had to be done. The little guy had made it nearly three days out there, and who knows where he was before that. My heart couldn't take it.

After a full day at work, I packed up two of my kiddos and we went for a drive. We had no idea what we would find or if we would find anything once we got there. A lot could happen in four hours.

When we stopped in Wendover, NV to get gas and food, my husband sent another video. He was still there!  Now, we had to hope that that he'd still be there because we had another hour and a half drive.

I prepared my children for the worst. He could be gone. He could be injured. He could be as mean and awful as a badger. There were all sorts of possibilities and unknowns, but we at least could feel good for trying.

When we showed up at the property, we didn't see him at all, and I worried we were too late.

Within ten minutes, there he was! He came around the porch and looked at us. He looked haggard, dirty, and disheveled. He was also terrified and starving!

Every worse case scenario didn't happen. 

We found him. He didn't bite or bark. We easily picked him up and placed him in the back of the car and started the four hour journey home.

It was the easiest rescue we could've planned on.

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As you can see from the pictures above, there is nothing out there. I honestly believe the little guy was dropped out near our property and it just saddens me that someone would do that to him.

We had only put motion-activated cameras on our property a few months before. Without those, we would've never known.

We took him home and the next morning I took him to our vet for a checkup. Besides a mouthful of NASTY teeth, he was in pretty good shape for a FOURTEEN year old dog (that's what the vet estimated his age as). There is no way a 14 yr old dog with arthritis would've hiked that far.

We got him his shots, had a worm test performed, and also had them clean and extract his nasty teeth.

We call him TECOMA, named after the valley our property is located on. Though, because he only has four teeth left, we nicknamed him Toothless (from How to Train Your Dragon). Because of his age, the likelihood of someone adopting him from an animal shelter is slim to none.

We've decided to keep him.

He is one lucky dog, living his best life right now. He roams our hillside with our other senior dog, eats his food while laying down (my spirit animal) and is overall a very loving, easy-going, happy as a clam, dog.

We weren't planning on being a two dog family, but when the universe drops a dog off on your property that no one has claimed, you do what you have to do.

Besides, Tecoma has made it pretty easy for us to love him.

Toothless smile and all :)

This is a picture of Tecoma's SECOND experience out at our property over Memorial Day Weekend. Wow, what a completely different experience for him!