A lost dog who vanished into the Rocky Mountains has finally been rescued and reunited with his owner after 43 days in the wilderness.
Steven Maa and his girlfriend were moving across country from New Jersey to Los Angeles with their 10-year-old brindled mutt Rocky (the name is a coincidence) when they stopped off in the remote former mining town of Montezuma, Colorado for a ski break on December 28.
But within minutes of handing Rocky over to a dog-sitter, he got scared, slipped out of his harness, and bolted into the wilds.
With a snowstorm blanketing the area, Maa and his partner Kate began searching for Rocky and stayed out until around 3 a.m., to no avail.
That's when Summit Lost Pet Rescue, a local non-profit, got involved, via a referral from Montezuma's Mayor Lesley Davis.
"Steve was definitely concerned that Rocky wasn’t going to survive the night,” the group's founder Brandon Ciullo told NJ.com. "I explained to him: 'We’ve been doing this for 10 years. My biggest worry and concern is vehicles, then wildlife and then environment.'"
Despite the danger, Summit had a practiced plan for situations such as this. They also had a 99 percent success rate in 2025, with 213 out of 214 lost dogs recovered safely.
How to find a scared, lost dog
Step one: set up remotely monitored cameras all over the area near where Rocky disappeared, plus a "scent station" with items that smelled like Maa or Rocky himself, such as clothes or a dog bed.
"Especially if it’s an unfamiliar area, a dog will come back, smell something that smells familiar, and then end up just staying in that particular area,” Ciullo told The Summit Daily News, a local newspaper.
Step two: fire off emails and social media posts as widely as possible, alerting anyone and everyone to be on the lookout for a small black dog with white markings resembling rocky road ice cream.
Three days later, Summit's cameras spotted Rocky alive — which gave Rocky's owners hope. "Up to that point, we had just been kind of devastated by the situation," Maa said. "Worried about, 'wow, can he even survive one night?'"
But when Maa came near, Rocky barked at him and ran off again. He was in "survival mode", Ciullo explained, and must not have recognized his owner's scent — which is common for dogs in desperate states.
That was the last time anyone saw Rocky for 39 days.
The trail goes cold
Maa and his girlfriend stayed and helped for eight more days, searching for 16 hours every day, but eventually they were forced to depart in order to finish their move and start Maa's new job in Culver City, California.
Teams of volunteers searched the area every day, with Maa helping coordinate and raise attention from the Golden State. According to Ciullo, no other dog has ever been missing for longer and still come back safely.
By early February, though, Summit had little choice but to begin winding down its search to focus on other animals. The probability of success, Maa was told, was not high.
"I think my judgment was a little clogged with emotion," Ciullo said. "I just kind of couldn’t believe we couldn’t find him and I was disappointed."
Then, on February 9, a Ring doorbell camera caught a fleeting glimpse of a small yet familiar black canine shape.
‘Please let me help you’
Ciullo was searching for another dog when he got the call. He apologized to the owner, telling them that Rocky had been gone for 43 days and was probably "extremely starving" and "very, very close to dying."
Ciullo and Summit's co-founder Melissa Davis now set up a trap, using Maa's clothes to make a scent trail and baiting it with some food. Within hours, Rocky was poking his nose inside, and even laid down to sleep on a blanket. But he didn't step on the pressure plate.
"I was pleading with Rocky to please let me help you. I’m here to help you," Ciullo told NJ.com.
Eventually Ciullo was forced to get out and try to approach Rocky — only for Rocky, still in a state of desperation, to wake up, bark at him, and run off.
Ciullo and Davis worked to reset the trap with peanut butter, only now they could hear Rocky howling.
"When a dog is dying, he comes very vocal and usually starts howling," Ciullo told the Summit Daily. "You can hear him in the woods just howling. And I’m like: 'That’s Rocky. He is in pain.'"
Ciullo warned the other volunteers that he was prepared to sleep in his truck for however long it took. “I told them, 'I’m not leaving this godd*** mountain until this dog is in the back of my truck,'", he told NJ.com.
‘We’re extremely proud of him’
After one more false start, Rocky finally tripped the trap. When the group found him he weighed only 28 lbs, barely more than half his usual weight. Shockingly, he was in good spirits.
"He was running around. He went straight to the toy bin," Ciullo said. "We couldn’t believe that this dog that hasn’t probably eaten in 43 days had this much energy and this much life to him."
On February 13, Maa drove from California and was joyfully reunited with Rocky. "We were just so overjoyed… and just [in] disbelief that he could survive for that long, just extremely proud of him for being able to do that and be so resourceful out there," said Maa.
He added that there seemed to be no lasting change in Rocky's personality, and that he rapidly returned to his old "cuddle bug" ways.
For Ciullo, it was a vindication of Summit's rescue work. "He’s the only dog I’ve ever cried over," he told NJ.com. "These reunions are why we do what we do."
In a Facebook post afterwards, Summit said: "We are so grateful to our Summit community and dedicated volunteers who worked thousands of hours to save Rocky!!! It takes partnership, a village, and donations to save lost pets."
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