Dog that went missing after wreck found safe

Rosie Brower never lost hope that Wrosco the dog would turn up alive.

The Australian shepherd disappeared after being thrown from a 2015 GMC pickup that rolled Thursday on Highway 21 near the Hilltop Station restaurant. Brower took it as a good sign that Wrosco wasn’t found dead at the scene. She figured the dog must have limped off and found shelter somewhere nearby while he recuperated.

On Sunday morning, Brower received a call from a neighbor saying Wrosco had been found.

“He was waiting in the driveway. He was dehydrated, had some frostbite and was sore, but didn’t appear to have any broken bones,” said Brower, who works at Hilltop Station.

Wrosco was in the cab of the pickup when his owner, John Evans, got into an accident. Both Evans, who is being treated at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise for serious but non-life threatening injuries, and Wrosco were ejected from the cab.

Brower had rescued the dog a few years earlier from an animal shelter. She was looking for a companion for her own Australian shepherd but the two dogs did not get along. She ended up giving the dog to Evans.

Brower, who also lives near the Hilltop Station, distributed fliers and organized search parties to look for Wrosco. They didn’t find any sign of him but help out hope that he would show up.

When he was found, Wrosco had alfalfa on his coat, leading Brower to believe he may have holed up in a barn. He was dry, so she did not believe he was sleeping outside in the snow.

“He had found shelter. I think he needed a couple of days to recover from being bounced around in the pickup,” she said.

Brower had to lift Wrosco out of her pickup and carried him up the steps to her home. After spending time at the restaurant, where regulars greeted him, Wrosco was reunited later Sunday with Evans’ girlfriend. She was to take Wrosco in for a checkup, but by Monday morning Brower had not heard how that examination went.

Brower, who fought back tears while talking about Wrosco, said she was overjoyed that he was found.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle what this dog has gone through,” she said.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Dog that went missing after wreck found safe."