The Fry family lost their 14-year-old corgi Lola on May 16. She was wandering near her home along Wyoming Highway 50 south of Gillette when she disappeared without a trace.
Nearly a month later, Lola turned up in a Facebook Classified post in Wisconsin, more than 1,000 miles away.
“I got a call at 8:15 a.m. and just cried," Kimberly Fry told Cowboy State Daily. “By 10 a.m., my husband, dad, and a family friend were on the road and drove all night to get her from Wisconsin.”
Lola is frazzled and lost a little weight after her strange journey, but is doing fine otherwise. Fry’s children, 7 and 3, were overjoyed to have the family dog back home.
Nevertheless, Fry is still trying to parse out what happened. She believes her corgi was stolen and abandoned by the people who stole her, making their reunion a miracle.
“You try not to give up faith,” she said. “After a month of hell, it’s very surreal to have her back.”
'My Newspaper Dog'
Lola is a great family and ranch dog, Fry said, but she’s a bit of a handful in her old age. After all, she’s at least 98 years old in dog years.
“She’s deaf, her back leg shakes because of a partially torn ACL, and she’s on a sensitive dog food diet because of heart issues,” Fry said. “But she’s the sweetest thing ever.”
Fry called her corgi “my newspaper dog” because that’s how she originally found her. It’s a reminder of just how old she is.
“Someone put an ad in the newspaper that they had puppies for $150,” she said. “We don’t really have newspapers anymore.”
Lola’s routine has been spending most of her time outdoors on the family ranch. Fry said she hangs out with the sheep, horses and chickens, and has been happy “doing her thing” for years.
Then, in her old age, Lola suddenly started to “see people,” as Fry put it.
“Two years ago, she decided she was lonely and walked a mile to visit the neighbors and their cats,” she said. “She’s just a friendly old dog.”
That’s why the Fry family wasn’t immediately concerned when Lola wasn’t home one night. It was the first night of an agonizing ordeal for the family.
Lola Lost
On the morning of Saturday, May 16, Fry’s 3-year-old daughter was taking Lola to her kennel when the dog slipped out of her collar.
“It's common for ranch people to have their dogs' collars pretty loose,” Fry said. “She made it into the kennel but without her collar.”
With Lola in her kennel, the family went into town at 1 p.m. When they returned home at 2 p.m., Lola was gone – the kennel’s door hadn’t been fully shut.
Nobody panicked. They figured Lola was off visiting someone and would be back soon. It was only when it got dark that the family started getting worried.
“My husband looked a little that night, but there was no sign of her,” Fry said. “We figured she’d be back tomorrow. She never came back.”
By Monday, the Frys figured someone must have taken Lola to the pound. When they called that morning, Lola wasn’t there.
That’s when, according to Fry, “the real panic started.” She started posting about Lola in every Facebook group she could, asking for any sign of her missing corgi.
“On Tuesday, we searched with a lady who had a tracking dog,” Fry said. “We found that she had gone to the neighbors, and someone had seen her near the highway on Sunday.”
On Wednesday, they searched with another tracking dog, thermal scopes, and a drone. No sign of Lola.
Fry feared the worst, but the evidence didn’t add up. That was simultaneously hopeful and dreadful.
“If she had passed away, the tracking dogs would have smelt her,” she said. “We were set on (the explanation) that someone had picked her up.”
If so, they weren’t reaching out. Fry tearfully recalled the long wait for any information.
“You never want to give up,” she said.
'I Have Your Dog'
One week. Two weeks. Three weeks.
Still no sign of Lola.
Both of Fry’s children celebrated their birthdays without their corgi. Fry gave herself an emotional break from posting about Lola, but started again in mid-June.
On June 14, Fry got a call. It was a woman from Wisconsin.
“She said, ‘I have your dog,’ and I just started bawling,” Fry said. “I asked if she was sure, because we had a couple of people reaching out trying to help, and she said, ‘Yes, I have your dog'.”
The Wisconsin woman had acquired Lola via Facebook Marketplace. Someone was trying to give Lola away, for free, to anyone who’d take her.
According to Fry, the woman who picked up Lola got some details from the people who had her. It was a young couple who apparently picked up Lola while moving from Wyoming to Wisconsin.
“They saw her on the side of the road and picked her up,” she said. “They just took her.”
The couple said they tried asking someone nearby if they knew who Lola belonged to before taking her. They claimed they weren’t aware she was missing and desperately wanted back.
The woman wasn’t aware Lola was missing either, but Fry said she had “the gut intuition” to check.
“She was going to pick Lola up because she wanted to be the free home, and was OK getting an old dog,” Fry said. “But she had a gut intuition to look into it, she searched Facebook and found us right away.”
Lola made it home at 7:30 a.m. June 19. She was tired, flustered, and had lost a little weight, but quickly settled in when she realized she was where she belonged.
“We’ve taken her to the vet, and everything’s good, all considering,” Fry said.
Jumped And Dumped
Lola’s back, but Fry is still trying to determine what happened to her dog. The circumstances have left her upset and angry.
The couple who picked up Lola claimed they had no idea anyone was looking for her. Fry doesn’t believe it.
“I had missing posters all over Facebook and at every veterinarian in the area,” she said. “I posted in the In Search of Missing Dog group on Facebook. I called the police and the sheriff’s department. I contacted every pound in the state.”
Assuming they didn’t know, their decision to give her away for free on Facebook Marketplace is, for Fry, telling.
“She has issues, and she was probably puking because she didn’t have her special dog food,” she said. “I feel like (the couple) decided she was more work than they wanted, and they put her up for free.”
Fry said if the couple had made a point of checking whether anyone in the Gillette area was missing a corgi, they could have easily found and contacted her, and gotten Lola back much sooner.
Instead, they took the dog to Wisconsin and gave her away.
“I don’t believe they even tried to find me,” Fry said.
Almost The 7%
Getting Lola back was an emotional moment for Fry. The moment of full emotional catharsis is when Lola was reunited with her children.
“They were with their grandparents that week,” she said. “We kept it as a surprise for them.”
After a month of “sleepless nights,” Fry is resting easy now that Lola is finally home. She’s been reunited with her $150 newspaper dog thanks to a “For Free” post on Facebook.
“She’s old and has had a rough, rough month,” she said. “In the research that I've done, there is a 93% chance you'll get your dog back. I was almost in the 7%, and had it not been for this lady who had that intuition to look, I would have been in the 7%. It’s surreal.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
