Loyal Dog Runs Away to Be With Sick Owner in Hospital

It has been a rough year for Dale "Bucko" Franck and his wife Nancy. According to Iowa Public Radio, Bucko spent some time in the hospital for health problems and Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. Nancy recently had cancer surgery, but there were complications, and the Cedar Rapids woman was transferred over to Mercy Medical Center after spending a few days in intensive care.

While Nancy’s situation is devastating to Bucko, it also appears to be hard on the family’s two Miniature Schnauzers, Sissy and Barney. And Sissy missed Nancy so much that she decided to take matters into her own paws.

In the middle of the night, Bucko woke up and discovered his furnace wasn’t working. While he was up trying to fix the problem, he took both dogs out into the back yard. Usually, the dogs run right back into the house after Bucko unhooks them. He assumed that Sissy had already run into the kitchen, so he went back inside. But it only took a few minutes for Bucko to realize Sissy was gone.

Bucko was distraught. “I was scared to death,” he told Iowa Public Radio. “I was crying. That’s my baby.” He called the animal shelter and the police trying to locate his lost dog. Sissy has an identification tag, so Bucko hoped that someone would pick Sissy up and return her. 

At approximately 5:15 in the morning, Bucko got a call from a security woman at Mercy Medical Center, who said that they had Sissy. The dog — who had never run away before and never visited the hospital in the past — walked twenty blocks away from her home and right to the hospital’s doors, where she actually made her way into the hospital lobby. It was there that the security staff recovered her. 

Bucko’s only explanation was that Sissy somehow used her sixth sense and was trying to visit Nancy. 

When Bucko and Nancy’s daughter, Sarah Wood, went to pick Sissy up from the hospital, Sarah asked if she could take the dog upstairs for a quick visit. A security guard escorted them up to Nancy’s room so that Sissy could spend a few minutes with her beloved pet parent.

When Nancy saw Sissy for the first time, she thought that Sarah had somehow snuck the dog into the hospital. But when Sarah relayed the story to her mother about how Sissy ran away in the middle of the night to come to the hospital, Nancy could only say, “You little stinker. How did you do that?”

Sarah and Sissy were only able to visit with Nancy for a few minutes, but Sarah believes that seeing Sissy brightened her mother’s day. Hopefully Nancy makes a full recovery so that she can get back home to her loving two-legged and four-legged family members.

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