by Brian Orr
HUERFANO — So here’s some good news in this otherwise dreary news cycle; Theo the dog was found.
The story starts off rough; with a car accident on I-25 on Dec. 16, when Darwin Ramirez, Theo’s owner, rolled his vehicle after passing out from a high fever and lung infection. Theo was riding in the back seat, and was unhurt. Darwin wasn’t so lucky— he had a fractured sternum and some broken ribs.
As paramedics pried Darwin out of his vehicle, Theo, a three-year-old husky/chow mix, got loose, and Sheriff’s deputies and EMTs were unable to catch the thoroughly spooked dog.
Darwin was loaded up into an ambulance and whisked off to the Spanish Peaks Regional Health Center emergency room, where he asked about his dog, but by that time, “he had taken off running into the wilderness,” Darwin said.
Darwin had been on his way to a new job and a new life in Castle Rock, CO, but his family was still in San Diego, so he was shipped off there to recuperate, not knowing the fate of Theo.
By Dec. 20, the story of the lost dog was circulating around Walsenburg, and came to the attention of various pet lovers, including members of the Friends of the Walsenburg Animal Shelter. People started going out in an unstructured manner, just to see if they could find the dog.
Organized searches started going out on the 21st, following up on any and all ‘Theo sightings’ around town. Meanwhile, Darwin’s friends had printed up LOST DOG posters and had tacked them all around Walsenburg, getting people following the saga.
Pretty soon, over 20 people were involved in the search, bringing in drones to overfly the area, ATVs to drive over the really rough country, and a tracking dog to trail Theo’s scent.
As soon as he was medically cleared for it, Darwin returned and joined in the search, looking in culverts and underpasses, and across dozens of square miles of prairie on cold December days and evenings.
On Jan. 6, Darwin received a Facebook message from a rancher way out in northern Huerfano County, saying he thought Darwin’s dog was on his property.
Darwin came racing down, and rendezvoused with search organizer Teresa Carlo, and together they drove out to the Edmundson ranch, east of Lascar Road. “It was pitch black by the time we got there,” Darwin recalled. “And this rancher was following a dog around on his property on his ATV, keeping him in his sight. I started calling out to him, and then I switched to his nickname that only I call him. He slowly walked up to me; he was nothing but bones. I grabbed him and hugged him, and his tail finally started to wag.”
Theo was finally reunited with Darwin after 16 days.
“I took him to the vet to get him checked out, and they were just stunned at what good shape he was in, other than malnourished. When they found out his whole saga, they refused to charge me for the checkup,” Darwin said.
Darwin has nothing but good things to say about the people of Huerfano County. “Everything that the community did was amazing. Knowing that people cared and were looking for him made everything easier to process, emotionally. The people here have been nothing but kind.”
Reuniting one dog with their owner is a small thing in this day and age, but having dozens of people actively giving of their time around the holidays, in the dark and cold, for a stranger’s dog none of them knew, says volumes about what type of community this is.
As Willy Wonka would say, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
