The tornado struck with brute force, tearing away the walls from the North Carolina home where a petrified Teresa Esparza hunkered for dear life beside a fallen refrigerator.
As she glanced out of what had once been a wall, she saw a horrible sight: The backyard shed where her aunt’s two dogs had been when the tornado hit was blowing apart, and the dogs were blowing with it, reports FayObserver.com.
“I looked out, and the shed had just broken off, and I see the dogs up in the air, maybe three feet,” Esparza, who had been watching the house for her vacationing aunt, told the newspaper.
Mind you, these are not diminutive dogs: Prince is a 4-year-old pit bull, and Raider is a 1-year-old German shepherd. It takes a some pretty fierce winds to get them launched.
Her aunt, Meagan Alfonso, came back to the devastation heartbroken about her dogs. She and her relatives dug through the rubble expecting to find their bodies, but didn’t find them. Then they realized it might be a good idea to check with the local animal shelter. They were thrilled to find Prince there.
Several days later police found a limping Raider poking around the his old, abandoned home. They tried to catch him but he ran into the woods. They contacted Alfonso, who came with them on their search. The dog wanted nothing to do with the officers, but as soon as Alfonso called out to him. “Raider came bounding through the woods into Alfonso’s arms, obviously thrilled to not be an orphan,” the newspaper reports.
“It was just like a scene from a movie,” Alfonso said.
“Raider definitely was very sad. He wasn’t eating until he saw Prince, and then everything went great from there,” Alfonso said. “He’s been with Prince since he was a puppy, so seeing them together was amazing. They were biting ears and biting tails and rolling all over the floor. It was just nice to see him back to his old self.”
Wow, what a miracle. And how great that the dogs are so happy together again. “The main thing was my dogs,” Alfonso told WTVD News. “I was really upset about the dogs. The house is replaceable, but my dogs aren’t so I’m thankful we found them.” (I realize that the fact that they were in a shed during the tornado wasn’t necessarily ideal, but the family seems to love them a lot, so let’s try not to get too hung up on that in the Comments.)
It’s like The Wizard of Oz, but on steroids. How far did the tornado take Prince and Raider? Was it just a few feet, and then they bolted from fear? Or was it like the inside of Dorothy’s giant twister, with all kinds of crazy things passing them? Did they see the Wicked Witch of the West, or how about Aunt Em in her rocker? The dogs have not told anyone yet.
Maybe the memory is gone with the wind.
