Doggone … and back again

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 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 4 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 June 18.

“She’s just so helpless, and you kind of imagined that she can’t get real far because she can’t see,” he said.

It didn’t help when the family was the subject of a terrible joke when someone claimed they found Lulu a few days into the search.

“We put the kids to bed and got a text saying, ‘We found your dog,’ or ‘I have your dog,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is incredible,’” he said. “Then the person texted me, ‘Just kidding.’ This happened, yeah, that was all part of this terrible story.”

After searching 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. She was about 15 feet (4.57 meters) down an embankment, and at first the crew thought it was a bear.

“They got a closer look and they realized that it was a dog, and they got her out of there,” Kubacki said.

TME – This is like four Disney movies in one.