ohmidog!

A truck driver pulled out of a rest area in Hannibal, Missouri, last Friday, unaware that anything was wrong.

He got all the way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa before he realized something was missing — his  9-month-old Yorkshire terrier, named Rambo.

“Didn’t even cross my mind that he might jump out, he never has before,” Michael Siau told the Hannibal Courier-Post. “I jumped back in the truck, put it in gear and drove off. And I just thought he was in the back asleep.”

Fearing missing his deadline could cost him his job, Siau kept driving, stopping only to call the police department he thought was closest to the rest stop, in La Grange, to report his lost dog.

He called them back two days later to check again, at which point they told him Hannibal was the town the rest area was in, and suggested he try the animal control department there.

He did that, and hoped for the best. Three hours later they called back and said they’d found his dog. Rambo had been picked up at the rest area — still waiting for his owner.

He was taken to the Northeast Missouri Humane Society

Siau planned a return trip to Hannibal this week to pick Rambo up.

(Photo: Dominic Genetti / Hannibal Courier-Post)

When 57-year-old Kevin McClain was advised that his lung cancer had reached the point that he needed to be in the hospital, he declined — refusing to be separated from his dog.

That was in early May, and McClain was temporarily living in his car in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with his eight-year-old sheltie/collie mix named Yurt.

A few days after sending paramedics away, McClain slipped into unconsciousness and the ambulance crew returned.

McClain was taken to Mercy Medical Center, and later transferred to the Dennis & Donna Oldorf Hospice House of Mercy to receive end-of-life care. His dog was taken to Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control.

As he was being taken to his room at the hospice, McClain told the paramedic accompanying him, Jan Erceg, that he was concerned about his dog, Yurt. Erceg, who also volunteers at Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control, recognized the name.

“I told Kevin I knew his dog,” she told Eastern Iowa Health. ” I told him she was doing OK and I promised to bring Yurt to see him.”

Two days later the reunion took place in McClain’s room at the hospice.

“This dog, from the moment she got in the vehicle to the time we arrived, she was shrieking and howling. I think she sensed what was happening,” Erceg said. “When we got to the Hospice House she walked right through the doors and led us straight to his room as if she’d been there many times before.”

Yurt immediately jumped on McClain’s bed.

“Kevin was unconscious but I kept putting his hands on the dog’s head and guiding him to stroke her,” she said. Then Kevin started moving his fingers on his own, petting Yurt, who licked his face and neck and arms. Kevin’s eyes opened.

Two days later, on Friday, May 13, McClain died.

Yurt spent another month in foster care before getting adopted.

At the hospice, they still talk about her, and the reunion between a man and his dog.

“It was just an awesome thing to see, something that made both Kevin and Yurt so happy,” says Brandi Garrett, patient care coordinator at the hospice. “It was obvious they had such a special connection to one another.”

(Photos: Eastern Iowa Health)