SITKA, ALASKA (AP) – An Alaska family had given up hope of finding their blind, elderly golden retriever who wandered away from their home three weeks ago, but a construction crew found Lulu in salmonberry bushes after initially confusing her for a bear.
Lulu was barely alive after being found on Tuesday, but she is being nursed back to health and is back home with her family, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported.
“She means everything,” owner Ted Kubacki said. “I have five daughters and they’re four to 13 years old, so they’ve spent every day of their life with that dog.” The Kubacki family searched for weeks after Lulu wandered off on June 18. After searching for weeks, the family had given up hope.
But then a construction crew this week spotted Lulu lying in the brush alongside a road not far from the Kubacki’s home.
At first the crew thought it was a bear. “They got a closer look and they realised that it was a dog, and they got her out of there,” Kubacki said.
All the sadness melted away when he got the call that Lulu had been found. “I called my wife from work and it was just screaming… She just starts yelling, then she yells to the kids. And I just hear them screaming like crazy,” Kubacki said.
Although alive, Lulu was in bad shape but her condition has markedly improved with medical care, food and rest. “Yesterday, she propped herself up on her front paws by herself, like nestled into me and gave me a kiss and wagged her tail and it was just so great.”
