http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10579166 Published Thursday March 5, 2009
Zak the dog is back home in California
BY ANDREW J. NELSON
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Zak the dog returned to southern California to a welcoming family and a gaggle of reporters with cameras and questions.
Zak
The family of truck driver Robert J. Shields, 59, welcomed Zak home at the San Diego airport Wednesday evening. Zak was temporarily stranded in Omaha when Shields died following a crash on Interstate 80.
The Nebraska Humane Society pleaded Monday for donations to send Zak, a basenji mix, back to his Poway, Calif., home. An American Airlines employee heard of Zak's plight and arranged for a free flight.
As Shields' daughter, Jamie Pickett, 25, described the reunion, seven members of the family arrived at the baggage claim area. Then came the television cameras. Then an American Airlines employee carried Zak out in a travel cage. The family welcomed him with hugs and tears.
"We were really excited to get the dog home and hold him," Pickett said, "and for my mom to have some kind of closure."
They led the dog outside to a grassy area where he, ahem, took care of some business. (The trip took seven hours, after all).
The family then turned to face the assembled army of television and newspaper reporters.
But they didn't mind.
FULL story at link.