In a Vacaville parking lot Saturday Deb Ferrara was crocheting like she does almost every day.
“This is what you do when you retire,” Ferrara told KTLA sister station KTXL in Sacramento.
But that day was different than any other because there was something missing: Ferrara’s dog Rex, who would keep her company, stitch after stitch.
Rex got out of his Vacaville home Thursday while Ferrara was at a friend’s funeral. She frantically looked for the 18-month-old puppy for hours, then she got a call.
“And she said, ‘Do you have a little white dog?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. You found him?'” Ferrara recalled.
Andersen and her fiance, Erik Gow, did find Rex while driving by the Davis Street exit off eastbound Interstate 80. But how they found him wasn’t the news Ferrara wanted.
“All we saw was this white thing come flying out of a blue Prius,” said Andersen, who witnessed what happened to Rex.
Andersen says Rex’s two back legs were tied with plastic. She got out to save him, but says another car hit Rex before she got to him.
They found Ferrara’s number on his collar and made the call.
“When she pulled up, seeing her cry, it broke our hearts,” Gow said.
Ferrara’s heart was also broken. Rex was her everything, she said.
“He was the sweetest little dog,” she told KTXL. “He was my 24/7 companion. I’d had him since he was just a pup.”
Thinking about how he died has been too much to handle for Ferrara, and thinking about who threw him from the car and why has been even harder.
“I wonder how scared he was,” she said. “Nobody should be that scared.”
So she sits in her car, with a bowl of dog food still inside from their last drive together, and she keeps her hands busy to keep her mind still.
“It makes me focus on something other than my life,” Ferrara said.
Anyone with information about the incident can contact the Vacaville Police Department at 707-449-5200.