A dog who walked himself home after his owner was ki*lled in a hit-and-run in Nashville, Tennessee, is working on a fresh start.
The pooch — named Patch — was on a walk with his female owner, who was visually impaired, when the incident occurred on March 22.
Police in Metropolitan Nashville say that a Ford F-150 pickup truck hit the 50-year-old woman, and she was later found by a bystander. The driver got away from the scene. At Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, where she was taken, they said she was de*ad.
Police say that Patch, a mixed-breed dog, was not hurt. Today says he reportedly left the scene of the crime on his own, walked to an apartment complex nearby, and waited outside the door of a neighbor. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said in a release that officers found her dog sitting at the front door, not hurt.
The dog was taken in by Metro Animal Care and Control (MACC) after the hit-and-run. MACC tried to find a family member of the pet’s late owner to claim Patch. No one who knew Patch was found, but that doesn’t mean the end of his story.
“A few rescue groups have already gotten in touch with us about him.” He looks like he may have been a service dog in the past. If that’s the case, he might do well in a rescue that takes in service animals. “That’s all a bit early at this point, though, because our main goal right now is still to find his family,” Matthews Peters, a representative from MACC, told WSMV about Patch soon after the dog arrived at the shelter.
As soon as it became clear that no one related to Patch’s late owner could care for the dog, MACC called Medical Mutts Service Dogs.
“Patch’s owner didn’t have any relatives, so he had nowhere to live.” “They got in touch with us when they found out that Patch had been his handler’s service dog,” says Kelsey Burton, director of development at Medical Mutts Service Dogs.
It is a nonprofit organization called Medical Mutts that trains rescue dogs to be service animals and encourages people and dogs to work together through research, education, and moral training.
“Unlike most service dog groups, we use dogs from shelters for our programs.” Because of this, we work well with a lot of shelters and rescues. Metro Nashville Animal Care and Control and our company have worked together for many years. “We often get dogs from shelters to come to our facility to train to be service dogs,” Burton says, adding that only about one in four of the dogs the group trains become service dogs and the rest are adopted.
Medical Mutts is sure that Patch will do great in training and be a great friend and service dog for the next person who pairs him up with.
“There are certain things we look for in shelters and rescues that have service dogs.” When we look for dogs, we make sure they are healthy, have the right personality, and are the right age. All of these things were true about Patch. “Once we knew his story, we knew we had to help turn it from a sad one to a hopeful one,” Burton says.
Hit-and-run that killed Patch’s owner is being looked into by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, which is looking for witnesses.
