A military veteran’s service animal escaped his vehicle during a crash on Interstate 70 late last week.

But cooperation between first responders, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the nonprofit Summit Lost Pet Rescue helped reunite the service dog with his owner the morning after the crash.

Bob — a 3-year-old shiba inu — ran across several lanes of interstate traffic and spent the night near the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels at an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet before being rescued, Summit Lost Pet Rescue founder Melissa Davis said.

“Everyone was so invested in this,” Davis said of the team that helped with the rescue. “Everybody was so worried about (Bob), and everybody was so determined to get him back safely.”

The crash occurred on eastbound I-70 just west of the tunnels a little before noon Thursday, April 3. Nobody knows for sure how Bob escaped the vehicle, but Davis said that it is likely he got out through the windshield, which was blown out in the crash.

After the crash, Bob ran across the eastbound lanes to the westbound side of the interstate, Davis said. She said that Summit Lost Pet Rescue had one person call shortly after the crash to report, “I almost hit a dog right when I was coming out of the tunnel.”

When first responders arrived at the scene of the crash, a Summit Fire & EMS paramedic quickly got in touch with Summit Lost Pet Rescue to report the missing shiba inu. Within 20 minutes, Davis said she and another volunteer were heading up to the tunnels to assist with the search for the dog.

On the way, Davis said she requested that the paramedic grab a piece of clothing from the dog’s owner to use as a “scent station.” She said she picked up the owner’s shirt at the hospital on her way to the tunnels and also got permission from the owner to grab dog treats and a blanket with his smell on it from his vehicle, which had been towed by a local tow company.

“What (a scent station) does is help the dog stay in the area near the scene of the crash,” Davis said. “Most dogs will stay near the scene anyway, but having the owner’s smells out there really helps keep the dog there and prevents it from running further away.”

At the tunnels, Davis said she met with Summit County Animal Control as well as Colorado Department of Transportation employees. She said a CDOT plow driver had seen the dog heading westbound near I-70.

But after setting up the scent station and searching for a while, Davis said the trail went cold. The team hoped that CDOT employees might spot Bob on the many cameras along that stretch of I-70.

“We knew we had a dog running around near the highway,” CDOT control room operator Rob Reid said. “But then we didn’t know what happened to the dog. We had a few people report seeing it, and that was about it.”

“I was looking everywhere on the cameras, hoping I would see this dog,” Reid added. “I was looking all around, but I didn’t see anything. I didn’t have the highest hopes, truthfully. But there is also a public safety thing involved with having a dog loose near the highway. It kind of had me on edge.”

Then, on Friday morning, April 4, CDOT employee Matty Hamel was plowing a parking lot near the tunnels when he noticed tracks in the snow. Hamel said he thought to himself, “those aren’t animal tracks, they’re too zig-zagged.”

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Hamel said that when he looked up toward where the tracks were leading, he spotted Bob in a patch of bushes and blue spruces, about 20 yards from the edge of I-70. Overnight, the temperature that high up in the mountains had dropped close to zero degrees, but the dog had dug himself a small hole in the snow to stay warm, he said.

“It was kind of crazy,” Hamel said. “The dog had to be parallel to where exactly the accident was, just on the other side of the highway. Like he was just waiting for his owner to come find him. Smart dog, man.”

Soon, Davis was back at the tunnels with another volunteer. Slowly, over the course of more than two hours, Davis said she did “calming techniques” until she finally was able to approach Bob and put a leash around him.

“The most important thing that we ask people is never to chase a dog, especially a car-accident dog,” Davis said, explaining that lost dogs are often in “fight-or-flight mode,” and therefore it is best to not make eye contact and ignore them until the dog feels safer.

Waving the clothing and blanket with the owner’s scent so that the dog could smell it, Davis said she climbed up the hillside toward the dog while singing his name quietly, tossing him treats and keeping an eye on his temperament.

Once she had a leash on Bob, Davis returned to the St. Anthony Summit Hospital, where the dog was reunited with his owner later that day, when he was released from the hospital.

“Once he saw his daddy, he perked up into his normal, happy behavior,” Davis said. “The owner was in tears. We were super happy. After about 30 minutes of being around his owner, you could tell that the stress on the dog was starting to release. He started wagging his tail.”