Owner’s determination brings lost dog home
Donna Rosen and her 6-year-old son, Braxton, may never know why their pet dachshund went missing for 13 months or what happened to him while he was gone.
Those answers, if they ever come, will have to wait. Only one thing matters now.
“Bobo is back!” Braxton proclaimed last Monday as he watched his mother cradle the dog in a park near their home. “Hi, Bobo. We missed you for a long time.”
Bobo has come a long way since he mysteriously disappeared from the Rosens’ Denton County, Texas, home on July 25, 2016. Rosen said she doesn’t know how the dog got away, though she suspects he was kidnapped. What she does know is that she has looked for him every day since.
“I am just flooded with emotions, it’s unreal,” she said after being reunited with the dog just outside Portland, Ore. “With everything that I’ve been through, it’s a miracle and too good to be true.”
Rosen’s friend was driving on a mid-winter night 10 years ago, when she saw someone in another car throw what looked like an animal into a freezing pond. The friend rushed to the animal’s aid, then called Rosen.
It was a 4-week-old dachshund puppy, and it stole Rosen’s heart.
“I rescued him from a bad situation,” she said. “He was always loyal and appreciative — it’s like he knows where he came from.”
From that day on, wherever Rosen went, Bobo went, too. There could not be a more inseparable pair. That was, until the day Braxton was born.
“They’ve been together ever since,” Rosen said.
The dog became Braxton’s best friend. But for Braxton, Bobo was more than just a companion.
Braxton has ADHD and has experienced seizures since his first birthday. As the two grew up together, Bobo became Braxton’s emotional support dog.
The dog was like another “child” to Rosen and because he was constantly with her and Braxton, she never had him micro-chipped.
“The dog was always in the bed with us, in the car with us, everywhere,” she said.
Bobo was always there, until he wasn’t. On that July morning, Rosen let Bobo and her other dog, Spike, outside to go to the bathroom in a gated area beside the house.
Spike soon returned. Bobo did not.
“Spike comes through the door. I say ‘Bobo’ and nothing,” Rosen said. “I started searching, and I’ve been searching ever since.”
Devastated but determined, Rosen contacted local shelters and reached out to rescue organizations. She checked countless lost dog Facebook pages — reuniting other people and their pets in the process. She got nowhere.
Meanwhile, her son was restless. Around the same time Bobo disappeared, the family was also dealing with a new move, an accident that required Rosen to get plates in her arm and the start of school.
“There’s never a good time,” she said. “This was the worst possible time for the dog to go missing.”
On the morning of Aug. 2, she was scrolling through an Oregon found pets Facebook page and noticed a dog’s picture that stood out among the countless others she’d scrolled past.
She was certain it was Bobo, but there was also a glaring difference: The dog in Oregon was described as partially blind and deaf, although Bobo had been fine the last time Rosen saw him.
Rosen made a FaceTime call and when she called Bobo’s name, he began looking around for her.
“Immediately when the camera turned around on him, I knew it was him,” Rosen said.
On Aug. 11, Rosen flew to Oregon to reunite with her other “child,” leaving Braxton with relatives. She returned to North Texas with Bobo on Monday and surprised an unsuspecting Braxton. The Rosen family was back together at last.
“We got him back,” a smiling Braxton said. “I’m so happy right now. I don’t want to lose Bobo again.”