Heartbreaking moment dog is rescued from the roadside after refusing to leave his dead friend

Melissa Ringstaff and her family were driving down a highway on a Saturday when they noticed a dog sitting on the road. They assumed the animal was hurt and turned around to go help.

When they reached the dog, it got up and walked to them making them realize he wasn’t hurt. However, after looking around a bit, they realized the dog was staying by the road to be close to another dog that was now dead.

Melissa Ringstaff and her family were on a 2-hour drive on a highway when they spotted a Great Pyrenees in the opposite lane. The big dog lay still in the road with cars swerving to avoid him.

The Ringstaff's grew concerned that the dog might have been hit by a car and Melissa’s husband Mykal, a pastor, pulled the truck over. When they went to inspect the dog, it walked towards them and they realized he wasn’t injured.

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. The family looked around and found in the ditch lining the highway another dog that had been hit by a car.

The dog was dead and it seemed the one in the road was staying by its side to guard it or perhaps it was mourning. Melissa shared that the sight “broke my heart.”

The family tried to get the dog into their truck, but he refused to leave his friend behind. The Ringstaff’s had to leave but ten hours later they had returned to rescue the canine.

The dog hadn’t left but it had moved out of the road. The family couldn’t lure the dog into their truck so they literally had to pick up the dog and put it on the car.

They drove with the dog in their truck searching for its home. However, the locals of their hometown of Harlan, Kentucky all said the same thing.

The two dogs were said to have belonged to someone who moved away. They left the dogs behind to fend for themselves, leading to one of them being killed.

The family decided to take the Great Pyrenees home. At his new home, the family fed him, bathed him, and gave him a haircut.

At night fell the dog was led to a brand new kennel to get some sleep. Instead, the dog broke free from the kennel in and disappeared from the Ringstaff home.

When Melissa noticed that the kennel had a broken door, the family went out searching for him for three days. They asked everyone they passed if they’d seen an enormous dog around but no one had.

The Ringstaffs even drove to the Humane Society and police stations but couldn’t find the Great Pyrenees anywhere. Eventually, just a few miles from the Ringstaff home, the canine was seen sitting on a stranger’s porch.

The next day Melissa bought him dog tags with his new name. He was named Tucker which the family felt suited his sweet, gentle personality.

Melissa wrote, “there was something about this dog that really made us fall in love with him.”

In a similar story, a dog named Gaia was abandoned and living in the middle of nowhere in central California. She had given birth to three puppies not long after being deserted.

One day she went looking for food and never came back after being hit and killed by a car. Her orphaned puppies were saved by Eldad Hagar who worked for Hope For Paws.

The Bill Foundation, an organization dedicated to rescuing dogs, managed to find all three dogs a forever home after Hagar had promised their dead mother that he would take care of them.