Lost Colorado dog turns up ... in Tennessee

updated 5:09 a.m. ET Jan. 5, 2007

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Seven months after disappearing from her yard in Colorado, a rat terrier named Daisy walked into the arms of Tracie Crass in Knoxville, some 1,300 miles away. Thanks to Crass, Daisy got an airplane ride home.

Crass spotted 2-year-old Daisy wandering down her sidewalk on Christmas night. She assumed the 12-pound dog had slipped out of its home amid holiday festivities, so she brought the pooch on her porch and waited for its owner to come looking for it.

When no one showed up by the next day, Crass telephoned the number on Daisy’s rabies tag. She reached Daisy’s veterinarian, who contacted Daisy’s owner, Vonda Lundstrom of Aurora, Colo.

“The kindness of people gives you a reason to believe,” Lundstrom said. “It’s the best Christmas present.”

A cell phone photograph of Daisy sent to Crass confirmed it was the same little dog that dug a hole under the fence at Lundstrom’s home in April and disappeared.

With help from Knoxville’s Young-Williams Animal Center, Daisy flew home on Wednesday.

‘I have my baby back’
The reunion at Denver International Airport was memorable. “She licked me. She loved on me,” Lundstrom said. “I have my baby back, that’s for sure.”

Lundstrom has no ties to Knoxville and she assumes somebody stole Daisy. She said she has since filled in the hole under her fence.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to see that it doesn’t happen again,” she said.

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