We’ll never know how the offspring of a champion coonhound found such bad luck as to find his way to a railroad track, but he did, and it didn’t go well. The nine month old Treeing Walker Coonhound was found lying between the rails of a track in 1992, three days after a freight train had mangled his right rear leg and front left leg in Nicholasville, Kentucky. When a railway employee tried to put the poor thing out of his misery, the gun jammed.  The owner was located, and a local veterinarian contacted, but when the vet noticed the dog’s grateful tail wag, the vet if he might keep the dog for himself. The pup, renamed, “Roadie,” had a new home.

His two injured legs were amputated, but Roadie learned to walk and never looked back. His recovery was reported by numerous media outlets in the 1990s, including CNN, Reader’s Digest, and Dog World magazine, and he was the subject of a Paul Harvey “The Rest of the Story” radio segment. Songwriter, Mike Carr,  a member of The Moron Brothers bluegrass group even wrote a song about him.

Donations flooded in which were put into a fund to pay for the treatment of pets whose owners couldn’t afford surgery or procedures. Roadie became a symbol of perseverance to people with disabilities even though his owner reckoned that Roadie could run as fast as any dog with four legs.  He appeared at fundraisers for animal welfare organizations, and for groups of people with disabilities. He was adopted as a mascot by the handiCAPABLE Guide Service Inc., a group that provides disabled people with outdoor recreation through a wheelchair-accessible boat and adaptive fishing equipment.

Roadie died at the age of 14 in 2006. His eyesight fogged by cataracts, and his remaining legs crippled by arthritis, the dog was released from the threads of his earthly life when he could no longer get up. Roadie still inspires with his story of perseverance and “can do” attitude.

Treeing Walker Coonhound by Laurence Canter
doggylips.com
http://laurence-canter.artistwebsites.com