You may have seen this story when it was first reported on the CBS Evening News, but it's so heartwarming and revealing about the love dogs have for their people that it's worth retelling.
It begins on a stretch of highway in central Tennessee, where Kathy Wilkes-Myers discovered a lonely female Rottweiler drinking from a drainage ditch. It's a spot where people have been known to leave their unwanted pets, but there was something different about the dog Wilkes-Myers found.
"She just didn't act like a stray dog," she told CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman.
And she wasn't, really. Near the dog were broken glass and taillights, remnants from an apparent auto accident. And not far away, some interesting items: a toothbrush, comb, a razor, a candle. They had been gathered together.
Wilkes-Myers remembered driving by an accident two weeks earlier at the same spot. A car had flipped on its side, and she wondered if perhaps the dog had some connection.
She called the Highway Patrol. Someone there told her the names of two people who had been involved, and Wilkes-Myers realized the dog was theirs. The woman's name was Michelle; the candle she found had that same name on it.
And then she realized that the dog had probably been thrown from the car and was left behind while emergency crews tended to the passengers. No one knew the Rottweiler, named Ella, was there - but she continued to look for her owners. Their belongings were all she had.
"That's the last spot she saw her family," Wilkes-Myers said, "and she was going to stay there."
Ella survived, and so did her family of five. When they were finally reunited, the homecoming was a happy one. Unfortunately, the accident left Joe and Michelle Kelly with massive medical bills, and they had to relocate to a place that doesn't accept dogs.
But Wilkes-Myers said she'll keep Ella until they do.
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