On the night of Feb. 22, a border collie puppy was scared and alone near the Colorado River off Trough Road. She had run away after being involved in a car crash around 7 p.m. on Colorado Highway 9 outside of Kremmling.

The two-car accident resulted in only minor injuries, but Dobby the border collie was now missing.

Dobby is owned by Tony and Sara Cozzolino, a couple who live in a subdivision off Highway 9 near Heeney. The Cozzolinos are neighbors with Brandon Ciullo, the co-founder of Summit Lost Pet Rescue.

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Ciullo told Sky-Hi News that the nonprofit is dedicated to finding pets in Summit County. But when he heard his neighbors were in need, he jumped in to help. A number of other volunteers and concerned citizens joined him.

The search

After Dobby went missing, multiple people posted about the puppy on Facebook, including Ciullo on the Summit Lost Pet Rescue page.

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Tenille Collard, who owns 1881 Tavern in Kremmling, said a patron showed her the post.

“I know Dobby and her people,” Collard said. “One of my regulars at the bar was like, ‘You should see this post. Is this our Dobby?'”

Collard and several other community members decided to head out to assist Summit Lost Pet Rescue.

“I was bartending, so I shut my bar to look for her,” Collard said. “Half my guests came with me, yelling for her.”  

Ciullo, Collard and others searched through the night for the puppy — who was likely disorientated after the crash — with no luck.

So on the morning of Feb. 23, Collard, her boyfriend Nick Baker, and Baker’s daughter continued to search the Trough Road area.

Dobby was wearing a leash when she ran away, so Collard easily identified the puppy’s tracks from the leash marks dragging behind. This was helpful because of other animal tracks in the area by Trough Road, Collard explained.

When Collard studied Dobby’s tracks, it looked like the puppy might have been doubling back.

“Her tracks went everywhere. She was obviously panicked and trying to figure out what way to go,” Collard said.

Collard felt she had a leg up on other people who were searching for Dobby because she knew the puppy.

“She’s a puppy and erratic — obviously from her tracks, she was just going in all different directions,” Collard recounted. “I was just standing there; I don’t know what direction to go in. And then she came out of the trees.”

Community helps bring Dobby home

As Collard headed toward Dobby, the dog was scared, growling and retreating back into the cover of the trees.

“I don’t know what she’s gonna do. As I’m talking on the phone, she just changed,” Collard said about what happened when she called her boyfriend. “Like, wait a minute. I know that voice. Then she came crawling over, crying.”

Thanks to the efforts of Summit Lost Pet Rescue and community members, the puppy made it home to the Cozzolinos.

“It turned out really well,” Collard said. “I thought it was a really cool thing about the locals, that I said I was going to look for Dobby and everybody said, ‘We’re going to help, too.'”