After 43 days lost and alone in the mountains of central Colorado, Rocky, an 11-year-old Labrador-boxer mix dog, has been reunited with his owner in California.
Despite subzero temperatures and being in the territory of that state’s recently reintroduce wolf packs, Rocky survived until he could be rescued.
Rocky escaped his harness during a walk near the town of Montezuma on Dec. 28. He avoided people and surveillance cameras for weeks until he was successfully spotted and rescued on Feb. 9, said Brandon Ciullo, the founder and mission coordinator for Summit Lost Pet Rescue, the non-profit that rescued Rocky.
He was skin and bones, but still standing. After several days of feeding and medicating, he was reunited with his owner.
“He’s a survivor,” said Ciullo. “He went from 50 pounds down to 26 pounds, but he didn’t starve and wasn’t killed after 43 days. He went against all the odds.”
Dog Gone
Rocky was moving from New Jersey to California so his owner, Steven Maa, could start a new job, Ciullo said. On their cross-country journey, Maa stopped in Summit County, Colorado, for a day of skiing on Dec. 28.
“Steve wanted to go skiing for a day, so he gave Rocky over to a pet walker,” Ciullo said. “After he left, within a few minutes, Rocky got really spooked and wiggled out of his harness.”
Maa searched for his dog until 1 a.m. Desperate to find Rocky, he reached out to Colin Watts, the mayor of Montezuma, asking if he knew of anyone who could help.
That’s how Summit Lost Pet Rescue got the call. Its whole operation was established because dogs get lost in Summit County.
“Summit County is a huge hub and touristy spot in the Western Slope,” Ciullo said. “A lot of people come up here for vacation, they like to walk their dogs off-leash, and accidents happen.
"It’s become such a need that we’ve networked every lost pet rescue team from Evergreen to Utah.”
Ciullo said his team was involved later that morning.
“We set up comfort and scent stations, multiple cameras, and put up our neon sign,” he said. “We started blasting emails, HOAs, and social media with information.
"Steve didn’t think he’d survive the night, but elements are the last thing we worry about. It’s vehicles, wildlife, and then the elements. We knew Rocky was still around.”
Even so, not even Ciullo could anticipate the emotional roller coaster ahead.
Sight And Scent
Rocky was in a difficult spot, even by Ciullo’s reckoning. Being lost in the mountains during winter is hard enough, but Montezuma is a small town in a remote location.
“It’s an old mining town about 6 miles above Keystone,” he said. “That’s very back country. There's no cellphone reception, very woodsy, lots and lots of wildlife, and pretty rugged terrain.”
The first step Ciullo took to rescue Rocky was setting up scent stations. It’s the first step in every rescue, even before using food.
“If a dog, human, or any animal goes through a traumatic experience, they don't want food right away,” he said. “Nobody gets into a head-on collision and says, ‘I'm in the mood for a cheeseburger.’”
Scent stations are “an old hunting trick” used to recover bird dogs, Ciullo said, adding that his team took several pieces of clothing and other objects from Maa and left scent trails in the area where Rocky went missing.
“In theory, the dog will smell the clothes, smell his owner, and be comfortable enough to want to stay in that area,” he said. “If it's a newly adopted dog, we find out where the dog was adopted from and get the vet tech's clothes.”
They attempted to lure Rocky back with scent stations for three days with no success. Overnight temperatures were below zero, so everyone was concerned for the dog’s safety.
On Dec. 31, Maa spotted Rocky.
The dog barked at his owner and ran into the woods, which Ciullo chalked up to “survival mode” after several days alone in the wilderness.
That was the last time anyone saw Rocky for 40 days.
Hope For The Best, Brace For the Worst
Even without any sightings of Rocky, eyes-on or on camera, nobody was giving up. Maa spent an entire week in Montezuma until he had to hit the road again.
“He put in 16-hour days for seven or eight days straight,” Ciullo said.
By that time, Ciullo had coordinated a team of 120 volunteers who were contributing in a number of ways.
Many ensured the search stayed alive via social media, while 20 people, in groups of four, searched the area every day for any signs of Rocky.
As days turned into weeks, morale was shrinking. Even Ciullo admitted he got “mentally misguided” after 30 days without any leads.
“I let my anger and disappointment take over,” he said. “If we don't find a dog or have a sighting in 30 days, we've never found the dog. That's only happened a handful of times, so we started to get discouraged.”
On Day 36, Ciullo had to make a hard call. He reached out to Maa to inform him that he was scaling back the search for Rocky.
“That was one of the toughest decisions we had to make,” he said. “I told Steve, ‘I'm sorry, but I gotta. I have lost dogs all over the place. There's nothing going on. I haven't seen him on my cameras. I don't know what else to do, but I've got to start taking my stuff down.’"
Ciullo hoped Rocky would turn up somehow, but his team had nothing to go on. It had been over a month without even a fleeting glimpse of the lost dog.
“It was (a decision) that I obviously regret,” he said.
The Comeback
Ciullo had diverted Summit Lost Pet Rescue’s volunteers and rescues to another dog rescue when he got a message from Melissa Davis, the cofounder of Summit Lost Pet Rescue, on the morning of Feb. 9.
“Melissa messaged us, ‘Rocky sighting on ring cam, waiting for pictures to confirm,’” Ciullo said. “My heart dropped. The pictures got sent over to Steve, and he said, ‘100%, that’s Rocky.’”
Rocky had been spotted on a security camera outside an empty rental property near Montezuma. The homeowner, who lived in Kansas, called Summit Lost Pet Rescue to report the sighting.
Ciullo and Davis immediately headed for Montezuma. Ciullo had to politely excuse himself from the dog search he was already on.
“I told that owner, ‘I got a sign of a dog that’s been missing for 43 days. He's got to be dying. I gotta go,’” he said.
Trapping Trouble
Rocky had been staying in a cul-de-sac between two unoccupied rental properties. That explained why he had been so difficult to find.
Davis has eyes on Rocky at 12:30 p.m., 35 minutes after Maa’s confirmation.
Ciullo soon joined her, and they were followed by volunteers with scent stations, more cameras, and a box trap set up on the same stoop where he’d been spotted.
Ciullo knew rescuing Rocky wouldn’t be easy. He was desperately thin, cold, and hungry — and still in survival mode.
“We set up and baited the box trap, made scent trails in all different directions, and backed off,” he said. “We didn’t want to scare him off.”
Rocky soon entered the box trap, stepped over the trigger, and ran off after eating the food inside.
When they reset the trap with a blanket inside, Rocky curled up in it and fell asleep. Once again, the trap wasn’t triggered.
Eager to rescue Rocky, Ciullo tried to approach the trap and trigger it from the outside. That’s what led to what he described as the moment that “broke my heart.”
“I started singing his name, pleading with him to let me help him,” he said. “He barked at me, then ran into the woods. When I got back to my team, all you could hear in the woods was howling. I knew that was him crying for help.”
Ciullo wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t even leaving.
“I got ready to sleep in my truck for the next three days, or however long it was going to take,” he said. “I told myself that I was not leaving until this goddamn dog is in the back of my truck.”
Rocky Rescued
With newfound determination, Ciullo, Davis, and their volunteers reset the trap with their ultimate, irresistible bait: peanut butter.
After four hours, Rocky returned.
Ciullo and Davis positioned themselves down the block, monitoring the trap via camera so they didn’t spook the desperate dog.
Rocky had a knack for entering and obtaining all the bait without triggering it. They had to reset the trap multiple times throughout the day.
Finally, around 7 p.m., the trap triggered with Rocky inside.
Ciullo said the dog was “scared and growling” when they loaded him up and rushed him to an after-hours veterinary technician who was already on standby for a preliminary assessment.
“As soon as we opened up the trap, he jumped out like a goddamn 9-month-old, vibrant puppy,” he said. “We couldn't believe how well and good-spirited he was. All he wanted to do was eat.”
Within nine hours of their first sighting in weeks, Ciullo and his determined team had rescued Rocky.
'Give Me Some Of That Reunion'
According to Ciullo, the longest successful rescue in Summit Lost Pet Rescue’s six-year history before took 25 days. Rocky survived 43 days in a dangerous, remote area during subzero temperatures.
Rocky spent the next two days under constant medical supervision at the Summit County Animal Shelter and Buffalo Mountain Animal Hospital, getting IVs and multiple tests to see how well he’d survived his ordeal.
Ciullo said the dog was in surprisingly good shape, given the circumstances.
“We had that dog lost in Breckenridge for six days, and all four of her paws were all chewed up, bleeding, and scabbing, and her lips were all chapped,” he said. “Rocky was out there five times as long, and he was fine. I could see his bones, but he was fine.”
Rocky lost 24 pounds during his 43-day ordeal, but Ciullo noted that he remained energetic and active even after all that time and hardship. He, morbidly and regrettably, underestimated the dog’s ability to survive.
“It takes a long time to starve to death, but it’s a long, slow, shitty process,” he said. “Rocky probably had a few more weeks in him, but I’m glad we didn’t take that chance. He was still up and walking, very mobile, and alert when we found him.”
The real tear-jerking moment came on Friday, when Maa arrived to pick up his long-lost dog. Rocky was thin but was healthy enough for Maa to pick him up and finish their journey to their new home in California.
Ciullo had one more poignant moment with Rocky before he departed.
“When he left, I was petting his head, and I said, ‘Hey, buddy, give me some of that reunion, go-home juice. I need to find this dog in Breckenridge. It's been six days, and I need to find her,” he said. “He stuck his head out of the car window and gave me a double bark.”
The dog in Breckenridge was the one Ciullo had been looking for when Rocky appeared. She was found later that day.
Amazing All-Around
Summit Lost Pet Rescue was founded by Ciullo and Davis six years ago to help pet owners find their missing pets in the remote and rugged terrain of Summit County.
Ciullo and his team of dedicated dog detectives have “a 99% success rate.”
“We had 214 lost dogs in 2025, and we found 213 of them,” he said. “We are respected equally as first responders with amazing followers, amazing funding, and an amazing support group, from animal control to law enforcement.”
Ciullo credited the legion of volunteers who tirelessly assisted him and Davis with the rescue of Rocky. The dog gets all the credit for surviving, but the story would have had a tragic ending if not for their selfless dedication to recovering him.
“They immediately dropped everything they were doing and did nothing but focus on finding him,” he said.
Rocky gave Ciullo and his team an unexpected gift.
After Maa picked him up, and the other dog was found in Breckenridge on the same day, Ciullo said he got his first day off since the beginning of December.
“It was a whole chain reaction that ended at the end of this amazing story of survival,” he said. “We have a really good following and a lot of Good Samaritans who immediately called us. It was really nice to have everything secure after the longest rescue we’ve ever done.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
