“We were all hurt, heartbroken, just wanted to get her back,” Kevin Madera said.
For 50 days, the only signs of 1-year-old Gigi, a Shepard mix, were her lost dog signs posted throughout Farmington.
“The more time went by obviously the worse we felt about it,” Madera said.
Madera, her owner, says Gigi got spooked while they were at his friend’s house in Farmington back on April 21. She got out of her collar, ran out into the street, was clipped by a car and took off into a wooded area.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
“I didn’t want to go home that night and once it got dark enough obviously we had no choice,” Madera said.
Madera says that night he, his family, and friends searched for Gigi for hours but she was nowhere to be found.
“Originally the hope was that we were going to find her shortly after she went missing,” said Leah Clark, with CT Dog Gone Recovery.
Local
Soon after word got out the dog was missing, volunteers with CT Dog Gone Recovery went to work but this would be no easy search.
“We were getting tons of sightings in but we always felt like we were one step behind,” Clark said.
It wasn’t until 50 days, later Leah Clark who led the search for Gigi says they finally spotted her. Clark says she was skin and bones.
“When we finally, Kevin and I, got a sighting on her on the highway she was already in survival mode and she didn’t recognize Kevin, she didn’t care that we had food, she was just running for her life,” Clark said.
It was along Route 4 where Clark started setting out feeding stations with cameras and traps and where Gigi would come for the next month but never when they were there, until Sunday night, 80 days after she went missing.
“I was telling my mom, the way she like looked at me but then really looked at me like she realized,” Madera said.
Gigi spent several hours at the vet getting checked out, she had nearly two dozen ticks but her weight was nearly back to normal.
It’s the kind of homecoming Madera says is worth holding out for and a dog gone reason not to give up hope.
“We just didn’t give up,” Madera said.
