Late last week, a terrified-looking female Chihuahua was found stranded, trembling on the center divider on an Interstate 680 overpass in Walnut Creek. Lacking treats to talk the animal down, California Highway Patrol officers had to coax her off the ledge using bits of a protein bar.
CHP Officer Alex Edmon and his partner found the puppy after receiving calls about a distressed dog running in lanes of traffic and sitting on the center median. "We attempted to coax it, we could tell it was very frightened, it was shaking," Edmon told NBC. "We were able to pet it a little bit, but other than that we could tell it was not happy."
One of the officers snapped a photo of the rescue, which the Contra Costa County CHP office must have recognized as a perfect opportunity to engage with the community on social media, tweeting out: "This little dog needed some help off I-680 freeway today. We're glad he's safe."
Once photos were taken and the Chihuahua was lured to safety, CHP officers delivered the pup to the county's Animal Care and Control shelter, where KRON4 reporter Dan Rubin found the poor girl still trembling from the trauma (or because, she's a chihuahua.) over a day later. Without a name for the puppy, Rubin has dubbed her, "Freeway":
After a mandatory three days on watch at Animal Care and Control in Martinez, Freeway was made available for adoption. Due to Freeway's instant celebrity status, there was a flood of interest in bringing her home, but as Officer Edmon pointed out, no one should be discouraged if they can't adopt the one trembling puppy they saw on the news. There are plenty of pups worthy of your adoption.
As for her old owners — who, presumably, are terrible people who should have never owned a dog in the first place — there were no witnesses who saw Freeway (or Princess, or Tinkerbell or whatever her name was in a previous life) being dropped off on that overpass. According to CHP, dogs on the roads are surprisingly common. "As sad as it sounds," CHP Officer John Fransen told KRON4, "it actually happens pretty often.”
