It was mid-afternoon last September when Sadie went missing.

Joshua Gray opened the door of his truck at a Love’s truck stop in California. That’s all it took. Sadie bolted from the truck like lightning.

Joshua and his wife Chana, team drivers for Forward Air, searched for their beloved terrier mix for three hours. They called animal shelters and posted on Facebook.

It was useless. Sadie was gone.

“I was walking barefoot looking for her, crying, asking people if they’d seen her,” Chana recalls. “I cried for two days straight. My husband kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’”

A Facebook Group Saves the Day

Chana and Joshua Gray

The Grays were heartbroken, and the next few days were filled with tears and angst as they wondered where Sadie was and if they would ever be reunited with her.

“I thought for sure I would never see her again,” Chana says.

The Grays are members of the Facebook group Trucking Fur Babies, dedicated to truck drivers who ride with pets. Chana posted in Trucking Fur Babies about Sadie, never thinking it would actually lead anywhere.

But it did.

Three days after Sadie went missing, the most remarkable thing happened. Chana received a message from driver Tammy Edmonds, another member of Trucking Fur Babies. She had spotted Sadie just a short distance from where she went missing.

“Tammy spotted her and followed her to a guy called Chevron Larry, a homeless man in Coachella, California,” Chana recalls.

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Chana spoke with Chevron Larry over the phone. He agreed to care for Sadie until the Grays could be rerouted back to California.

Within days they were reunited with their beloved Sadie.

“It was about midnight when we got over there,” Chana says. “I pulled in. Sadie heard the truck. I asked, ‘Sadie girl?’ She launched up at me and that was all she wrote. I couldn’t stop crying.”

By the time the Grays arrived in Coachella to pick up Sadie, Chevron Larry had developed affection for her. In the short time he had Sadie, he fed her hot dogs and took her everywhere he went.

“He told me, ‘Just take care of her,’” recalls Chana, who gave Larry some cash and fresh bedding as thanks for his help.

“If we didn’t find Sadie, I would have been devastated,” Chana says. We have two other fur babies, so she’s part of the pack. They come as a package deal.”

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