Dog reunites with family after accident killed its owner
EUFAULA — At 9:07 a.m. Monday a distraught customer called the Eufaula Indian Journal newspaper to place an ad for a lost Jack Russell terrier named Milo.
Joyce Fowler said her brother, Thomas Cosper, 81, and cousin, Ruby Hoskison, 86, were killed in a single-car accident over the weekend, and the dog had been with them, but was missing.
“My brother loved that dog,” Fowler said.
Twenty minutes after the ad was phoned in, a resident of McAlester, 30 miles south of Eufaula, called the Journal to place an ad because he found a Jack Russell terrier.
It was a muted happy ending to a tragic story that began happily enough when Cosper and Hoskison joined Fowler and other family members at a theater on State Highway 9 where gospel singing is a weekly Friday night event.
After the singing, shortly after 9 p.m., Fowler drove to her home in Po- rum Landing and Cosper drove west on State Highway 9A to U.S. 69, headed to his home 40 miles south of McAlester.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported Cosper’s vehicle entered the U.S. 69 South on ramp about 9:30 p.m., and then went off the roadway.
Cosper was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital a short while later. Hoskison died Saturday afternoon in a Tulsa hospital.
Family members heard about the accident and rushed to the scene — a stretch of highway that crosses Lake Eufaula three miles south of Eufaula.
They searched for Milo until late into the night, but to no avail.
The next morning, John Whitten, 49, a pipeline welder who lives in McAlester, was on his boat fishing on the lake about a mile north of where the wreck occurred.
“I was on the South Canadian side, the side where the railroad runs parallel to the highway,” he said. “There’s a long stretch of rip rap there.”
Movement on the rocks caught his attention, and he saw a small dog.
“My boat was about 30 feet away,” Whitten said. “I started talking to him and looking around for somebody and then he got into the water and swam out to me. I scooped him up and then started looking for an owner — it was an unusual place to find a dog.”
Fowler wasn’t surprised that Milo jumped in the water and swam to the boat.
“My brother took him fishing all the time,” she said.
Whitten said Milo was well-fed and in good shape.
“He rode around in the boat with me the rest of the day,” Whitten said. “I made a couple of trips back over there to try to find the owner.”
The dog stayed with him and his wife, Teresa, through the weekend.
“I started calling vets in Eufaula and Longtown and some other places,” he said. “Finally, I called the Journal to put in an ad and the lady told me someone had just called in about a missing dog named Milo.”
Whitten called him by that name, and there was instant recognition.
“You could tell that was his name.”
Whitten was humble about his diligent search to find the owner.
“If one of mine gets loose, I’m appreciative of people who give me a call,” he said. “It’s kind of like, dogs are a part of people.”
Fowler said Milo probably will live with one of her brother’s sons or grandsons.