Dear Editor,

I have met Barbara once at an office in Ned. I am hoping you can pass along this message to her.

I have a dog named Keeper. He’s a rescue from rural Mississippi. The first seven months of his life were extremely traumatizing, as he had been a bait dog in pit bull fighting rings. I found him in a thunderstorm hiding under the deck of an abandoned house. He really is a Keeper, and we have not been separated since. Not until last Friday.

My husband wanted to take our truck and camper to the Gilpin County car wash on Highway 119. We were standing outside the truck as my husband proceeded to wash off the mud from Magnolia Road, when I heard what I thought was a gunshot.

Keeper heard it as well, and bolted from behind the vacuuming area of the car wash – around the side of the building and disappeared. I walked immediately to the side street that runs parallel to Highway 119 calling for Keeper. I searched for 30 minutes, with no sighting of Keeper. My biggest fear was that he crossed Highway 119, which was very heavily trafficked midday Friday.

Once out on the side road, a young man came from a business located next door to the car wash (Gilpin Auto Works) to say he had heard my husband and I calling for our dog, and he took the initiative to check their outdoor cameras. He was able to tell us Keeper ran full speed across the highway and behind the liquor store, where the cameras lost sight of him. The kind young man joined my husband in calling for Keeper up and down Highway 119, while I drove our truck (leaving our camper at the car wash) to the liquor store.

The second amazing Gilpin person: the manager of Underground Liquor came out from her office above, down the stairs, and checked with her employee and their cameras and identified that Keeper had run through their property and into the property of the home that backs up to her business. She directed me to drive down to Karlann Drive and look for Keeper.

I started with the first house after the curve on Karlaan Drive. With each house whose homeowner was home, I was greeted with kindness, sympathy, dog treats, and many offered to come out and help me look. One homeowner who wasn’t home had a “Ring” doorbell, and while he was at work offered to keep checking his video feed to look for Keeper. One mother with two kids playing in her driveway took my phone number and said she would stay outside with her kids and keep calling and looking for Keeper.

I was at the door of another homeowner when he arrived home, and said he would take his two dogs and start searching for Keeper and he would call me if he found him. He shared his dog treats with me. The homeowner directly opposite the property of the Underground Liquor store told me she would put Keeper’s description on the Gilpin County Facebook page known as “Home Sweet Home” with my phone number. She also waved at the manager of the liquor store who drove by in her personal car, saying she was out looking for Keeper.

Two hours later and no sightings of Keeper on Karlann Drive. Not a single person whose door I knocked on treated me as a stranger. At this point I had called for him and sung his favorite songs so loud my voice was hoarse and the crying on my part was making it impossible to call his name out loud, so I drove back to Jankowski Road to pick up my husband Craig.

Craig had been joined by an employer clothed in a bright yellow vest at a Gilpin County vehicle storage lot who was out calling Keeper’s name with more treats. There was also yet another woman following them in a small 4-door sedan with pink tinted hair that stopped me and said she had “put out the word” that Keeper was missing and she knew of multiple people out looking for him.

She noted the people at Taggert’s and the fire station had spotted him. That told me he had made it back across the highway a second time, alive. I headed to Taggert’s, where two people saw his picture on my phone. They, too, headed out in their cars to look for Keeper.

Two firemen had just started up their beautiful red full-size diesel truck and were headed out, and stopped to get my name and number. They said they would go look for him. They turned out on Highway 119 towards Black Hawk, making note of our Iowa license plates. A few minutes later the lady with the pink hair pulled up to our truck and said she heard Keeper was spotted in the County storage lot behind Taggert’s on Braecher Park Road.

Three and a half hours into this search, my husband was walking for a mile in thick forest between Bear Mountain Road and Braecher Park Road, when a dump truck driver for Gilpin County pulled up beside me and said he heard we were missing a dog. He offered me treats, and said he was getting ready to head home, but he would drive around and look for Keeper.

I stayed on Braecher Park Road, calling and singing out to Keeper, when a man in a small 4-door sedan came by and introduced himself as Doug Lupo. He said he was out looking for Keeper and had spotted him off Braecher Park Road. Doug said Keeper was running full speed ahead and had been caught up in barbed wire. He offered to keep driving in that area until he spotted him again, and he promised he would come find me with any news.

The firemen called, as did the Gilpin County Sheriff, and said he had been spotted just seconds ago in a fenced-in field at the intersection of Rudolph Ranch Road and Braecher Park Road right before it turns onto Highway 119. They said they called out to Keeper, and Keeper ran into the woods away from their fire truck.

I headed to that intersection, leaving my husband unaware in a distant field, and met up with Mr. Lupo at this spot. Turns out Mr. Lupo had his eyes on Keeper and Keeper wouldn’t come to him. Keeper was actually running away from him, and in circles. No surprise there, as Keeper is afraid of all strangers.

It took a bit of coaxing to get Keeper to come out of the field, and he had in fact been dragging barbed wire around with him while running about. While he was trembling, and clearly distraught, I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude.

What kind of place is filled with amazing, sensitive, dog-loving, empathic people that will drop everything and help a stranger who has lost her dog? What kind of community is it that people would leave their businesses, homes, work responsibilities to find an unknown black dog lost in their neighborhood and forest? I don’t think it was the town of Rollinsville at this exact spot, nor was it Black Hawk, but what I do know is that it is Gilpin County.

Keeper’s pictures were posted on three different Facebook pages, and who knows where else, and while I tried to go back and find individuals to thank them – most had disappeared by the time Keeper was in my arms.

Barbara, I thought maybe you could write a little something in The Mountain- Ear to say just how remarkable this community was and is. I’m sure you will know the area. I am also sure I will never forget this area! We were not going to leave in our camper until I found my dog, but I am absolutely confident I would not have been able to find him alive, had it not been for this entire community of loving people.

Craig was overheard saying to Mr. Lupo that we were so grateful and humbled by everyone who came out to look for him, and followed it up by saying: “You hail from a very special community, Mr. Lupo. We owe all of you a tremendous debt.”

Thank you for anything you might be willing to write about these kind Gilpin County folks.

Patricia & Craig VanSandt
Peak to Peak