"For five weeks, the German Shepherd was stranded on the highway’s center median, surrounded by racing cars and without food.
"The police in Galt, about 25 miles southeast of Sacramento, first got a call April 10 from someone who reported seeing Frida fall out of a pickup truck, KCRA reported. For the next few weeks, officers fielded calls nearly every other day alerting them to the limping dog living in the middle of Highway 99. But whenever police went out to search the median, swathed in flowering oleander bushes, they couldn’t find the injured animal.
---[ Finally, she was captured by persistent police on Saturday, May 14, who took her to a vet for urgent care : a whopping 20 lb weight loss, dehyration and a broken hind leg, presumably from the fall from the pickup. ] ---
"It was obviously pretty devoted to its owners and stayed in the island waiting for them to come back for five weeks,” veterinarian Mike Johnson told KCRA.
"How Frida [the German Shepherd's temporary nickname] managed to survive without a source of food and water is also a mystery, Johnson told the TV station. “We were speculating on what she’s been doing for food and water these last five weeks… maybe the rain.”
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Commenters are vocally criticizing the owners, who never bothered to come back to find their pet. Or maybe didn't notice she was gone until too late, but bizarrely made no effort to retrace their route to locate her.
A point to be remembered is that it's very dangerous to have a pet in the open bed of a pickup truck.
I always wonder when I see dogs lounging around in the back as the driver barrels along how any sensible owner would take such a risk. There have been several stories in my area where dogs were thrown out of pickup trucks during accidents. In each case, the canine was found by a sympathetic local who lived near the road and gave special care to the animal until the owners were able to reclaim them.
I also saw a smallish dog sticking its nose far out of a driver's vent [that triangular window ahead of the usual glass] and wondered how wise driving like THAT is.