‘I couldn’t wrap my mind around it’

Missing New Milford dog finds his way back home

NEW MILFORD — Copper sat happily licking his peanut buttercovered bone Monday afternoon, basking in March’s first warm rays next to his human, Jean Mariano.

Mariano had worried she might not get moments like this again. Copper, her two-year-old rescue, had run away from her New Milford home a month ago and had been missing for the better part of 13 days.

But, somehow, he turned up about 10 miles away in Washington, at the home of friend who had been looking for him, too.

“I’ve never had a truly insane moment like that,” said Amy LaRusso, the assistant manager at a local kennel, who had trekked the area looking for the dog. “I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.”

The day Copper ran away, Mariano and Copper were on their way home from their four-mile sunrise hike when the dog was spooked by a pickup truck pulling a log splitter.

He backed out of his harness and hightailed into the woods,

Mariano said.

After searching for him with no luck, Mariano jumped into action.

“I immediately got 8 x 10 glossies of Copper,” she said.

Mariano posted them all along the trees on River Road, where hikers, bikers and runners might see it. But for almost two weeks, all she heard were a few reported sightings along Route 202. She said she was so worried: he knew how to find water, right? What was he eating? Where was he? Would she ever find him?

‘He’s perfect for me’

Mariano has had many dogs throughout her life, but Copper has recently filled a special spot in her heart. She adopted the lab-hound mix, about a year ago, and the two have been inseparable since.

The two share an intimate bond, she said. He’s her adventure and workout buddy. They spend almost all their time together. When Mariano is sad, Copper instinctively knows to nestle under her arm and rest his head on her lap, looking up at her with his soulful eyes.

“I do get sad, I’m human, and he’s very in tune,” she said. “He’s perfect for me.”

So, when Mariano went back to the area where they hiked just before Copper disappeared, she desperately hoped for any sign of her dog.

“I put my hiking boots on with my crampons, and I went hiking,” she said. It was then, in the woods, that she started to cry.

She didn’t know where he was or how to find him. Her dog, her companion, was gone. There was only one Copper, and she simply couldn’t live without him, she said.

Before Copper came into her life, Mariano lived alone. Her son, Jason Lewis, a Navy Seal, was killed in Iraq in 2007. She has three grandchildren and still works part-time, but Copper has been her constant companion during the past year. And he’s provided more than friendship: he’s given her unconditional love, she said.

Copper has always been incredibly shy and skittish around strangers, Mariano said. She had been told he was dropped off at a local pound in Virginia Beach with his siblings when he was very young. Her daughter-inlaw, who lived in the area, brought him home. By the time Mariano adopted him, Copper was about a year old.

When she visited her daughter-inlaw and grandchildren, she said the pretty copper-colored dog couldn’t stop shaking. So she sat down with him and just kept petting and talking to him.

“I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, you’re beautiful, but you’re scared,’” she said.

Returning home

Just after midnight on March 11, Mariano got a text. It was LaRusso, assistant manager at Unleashed, the kennel where Mariano occasionally housed Copper when she went out of town.

LaRusso had been home playing video games upstairs when she heard a dog howling outside. She lowered her headphones. It wasn’t one of her two small dogs. It wasn’t her neighbor’s dogs. She went to investigate.

There, right outside her house, practically leaning against the front door, was Copper.

LaRusso had bonded with Copper at Unleashed, where she often takes a liking to the animals that need a little extra attention. She said told him this every time they parted ways: “I love you, Copper!”

When she found out he had gone missing, LaRusso spent days trekking back and forth over the trails and the nearby road with no luck.

“Every night after work, every day before work, I was out there driving River Road,” she said.

She opened the door as he was mid-howl, and as she realized it was the dog she’d been searching for, Copper took off. But as soon as she called his name, Copper froze, turned around and ran right to her.

“I just held on for dear life,” LaRusso said.

She said she couldn’t understand how he’d found her. Copper had never been to LaRusso’s house, which was a good 10 miles from where he got lost in New Milford.

All LaRusso knew was that she didn’t want to let go, afraid that it was a dream, and that she’d wake up and Copper would be gone again, she said. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t talk. She just lifted the skinny dog and took him inside. She began pulling the ticks off him and gave him a little bit of food while they waited for Mariano.

Mariano left her house in her pajamas.

Now, things are returning to normal. Copper’s a little skinnier than usual, but he’s enjoying being back home, Mariano said.

“Right now I’m sitting outside, he’s sitting on the patio with me in the sun,” she said. “And he’s happy.”

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Jean Mariano, left, and her dog Copper with Amy LaRusso who works for Copper’s daycare, Unleashed on Monday, in Milford. Copper ran away recently while Mariano was walking him, and the staff at Unleashed took it upon themselves to look for him, including LaRusso who stopped everyday at the location he ran away.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Copper ran away recently while his owner Jean Mariano was walking him, and the staff at Unleashed, where he goes to daycare, took it upon themselves to look for him, including Amy LaRusso who stopped everyday at the location he ran away. Twelve days went by and Copper turned up outside LaRusso’s home in Washington.