An Alaskan family had given up hope of finding their elderly, blind golden retriever that strayed from their home three weeks ago, but a construction crew found Lulu in salmon berry bushes after initially mistaking her for a bear.
Lulu was barely alive after being found Tuesday, but she is being nursed back to health and is back home with her family, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported.
“She means everything,” said owner Ted Kubacki. “I have five daughters and they are between 4 and 13 years old, so they have spent every day of their lives with that dog.”
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The Kubacki family searched for weeks after Lulu left on June 18.
“She’s so helpless, and you figure she can’t get very far because she can’t see,” he said.
It didn’t help when the family was the butt of a terrible prank when someone claimed to have found Lulu a few days into the search.
“We put the kids to bed and we get a text that says, ‘We found your dog,’ or ‘I got your dog,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing,'” she said.
“Then the person texted me, ‘Just kidding.’ This happened. Yes, that was all part of this terrible story.”
After weeks of searching, the family had given up hope.
But then this week, a construction crew spotted Lulu lying in the brush beside a road not far from the Kubacki home. She was about 15 feet (4.57 meters) down an embankment and, at first, the crew thought she was a bear.
“They took a closer look and realized it was a dog, and they got her out of there,” Kubacki said.
All the sadness vanished when he got the call that Lulu had been found.
“I called my wife from work and she was just yelling… She just starts yelling, then yells at the kids. And I hear them screaming like crazy,” Kubacki said.
Although alive, Lulu was in bad shape. The 80-pound (36.29-kilogram) dog had lost 23 pounds (10.43 kg) since she went missing; she was dehydrated, dirty and her fur was matted.
“I was just hoping to come back and say ‘Hey, here’s my dog.’ He’ll jump up and wag his tail and kiss me on the face, and he couldn’t even lift his head,” he said. “She had gone through the wringer.”
Lulu’s condition has improved remarkably with medical care, food and rest.
“Slowly but surely, he started to eat and was able to lift his head,” Kubacki said.
“But yesterday, she got up on her front legs on her own and snuggled up against me and gave me a kiss and wagged her tail and it was great.”
A day later, she was able to stand on her own.
Kubacki, a grocery store clerk and sole provider for his family of seven, fretted over the vet bill.
Those fears were unfounded as Sitka residents donated hundreds of dollars to cover Lulu’s recovery bills.
“We have our relative’s house,” Kubacki said.
© 2022 Associated Press