Dog Lost In Car Crash Found Herding Sheep

In Idaho, a car crashed. The family dog vanished. Was he okay? Injured? Scared? No one wanted to think the worst.

Rest easy, all is well, Tilly was found. He took this opportunity to restart his career as a sheepdog on a farm near the collision site.

Tilly is a two-year-old border collie-heeler mix. The Spokesman-Review newspaper reported that Tilly was ejected through the truck’s rear window during the collision. He was scared and was seen running off.

No humans were injured in the crash but the family was distraught about Tilly. Strangers even helped in the search for him.

“People just kept going out,” Oswald told the Spokesman-Review. “Two-thirty in the morning, some people were out looking for him.”

The family turned to Facebook to get more help in the search.

“Mike and I were in a car accident,” Linda Oswald wrote in a post, which has been shared thousands of times. “We are good but my dog Tilly is missing. he was thrown out and was seen running north.”

Two days later, some local farmers noticed they had a bit of extra volunteer help with their sheep. Tilly was herding them. They had remembered seeing something about a lost dog that looked like that on Facebook.

They suspect the dog was running on instinct. “I think that dog was trying to herd,” the farmer said.

The local sheriff rolled up to ask about Tilly. The farm family had managed to call the dog in and give him some much-needed food and water.

Tilly's family was not surprised to learn that he’d been moonlighting as a sheepdog.

“He’ll herd anything,” the father said. “When I go to the dog park, he tries to herd the people into one group.”

Tilly is healthy. All is well.

“The first thing is, he ran in and drank out of the toilet, which he’s never done,” Oswald said. “He was so thirsty.”

The family is relieved their lost family member is home.

“It was ridiculous," mom said, "but you get so emotional over your pets.”