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Retired Marine Maj. John W. Lynch III reunites with the dog he named Thunder. |
The mystery of Brindle now has at least a partial solution.
The 13-year-old Lab-boxer mix came home to owner Gary Rowley of Spotsylvania County this fall--11 years after Rowley had given him up for adoption because of his propensity for running away.
In September of this year, Brindle was discovered as a stray in Lawton, Okla. His microchip showed that he belonged to Rowley.
Brindle's journey and reunion with Rowley, who is 53, were detailed in The Free Lance-Star last month.
Myrtle Lynch of Stafford County happened to see those stories and photos in the paper, and she felt a jolt of recognition.
That was Thunder, the dog her son had adopted in Stafford and had taken with him when he was transferred to Oklahoma with the Marine Corps.
But when she told her son, now a civilian working for the Department of Defense in Okinawa, Japan, he doubted it.
Still, Myrtle Lynch hung on to a copy of the paper with Brindle's picture.
Retired Marine Maj. John W. Lynch III, 47, returned to the area this month for a week's work at Quantico. When his mom showed him the picture, he was sure.
His Thunder and Rowley's Brindle? The same dog.
A SPECIAL REUNION
One night this week, John Lynch, Myrtle Lynch and Myrtle's friend Gerald Butler drove to Rowley's house to visit the elderly dog.
Myrtle Lynch sat on the floor of Rowley's dining room, and a wagging Brindle came right over and nuzzled her face. He circled from Myrtle Lynch to John Lynch to Butler to Rowley and back to Myrtle, sniffing and wagging and demanding to be petted by all.
For the next 45 minutes, the humans shared their stories.
The dates matched up. Rowley gave the dog up in early 1999, and not long after that Lynch happened upon a shelter adoption event at a pet store. He took home the handsome brindle-coated dog and named the animal Thunder for his booming "woof."
Like Rowley, Lynch had a fenced backyard. And like Rowley, he soon realized a 4-foot fence would not contain this determined escape artist.
And it wasn't just fences. At Lynch's house Thunder once spotted a squirrel through a closed window. He crashed through the glass to get at it.
When John Lynch was transferred to Oklahoma, he left Thunder with his mom in Stafford.
Myrtle Lynch loved that dog. He would wake her some mornings by putting his paws on her pillow and licking her face.
But after paying yet another $40 fine to spring Thunder from the pound, Myrtle Lynch asked her son to take the dog back with him to Oklahoma.
WEST, IN A MUSTANG
John Lynch and Thunder made the 1,300-mile drive in Lynch's Mustang convertible. The dog loved to ride with the top down--nose high and ears blown back in the wind.
In 2001, when Lynch learned he was being transferred to Okinawa, he considered taking Thunder. But a family he'd befriended in Lawton urged Lynch to leave the dog with them instead.
Over the next eight years, Lynch said, he lost touch with those friends. But he always assumed his former pet was in safe hands and well-cared-for.
And maybe for much of that time, he was.
But in September, Lawton residents Amy Rohde and her 8-year-old daughter, Tristan, discovered the dog lying under a bush. He was in terrible shape--a bag of bones covered with ticks.
The Rohdes took him home, gave him food, water and a bed, and the next day took him to the vet.
That's when they found the microchip with Gary Rowley's contact information.
The story made the TV news in Oklahoma.
After Brindle was already back in Virginia with Rowley, a woman contacted the Rohdes and claimed the dog was hers.
But her story had too many holes. Amy Rohde and Rowley concluded that the woman had seen the television coverage and wanted to be a part of Brindle's celebrity.
But when John Lynch e-mailed, it was different.
Rowley was quickly convinced Lynch's story was legit. He understood Lynch's desire to lay eyes on the dog, to make sure he really was OK and to give him a scratch behind the ears.
And that's what happened.
The Lynches aren't trying to reclaim their former pet, though Myrtle Lynch told Rowley that if he ever needs her to, she will gladly take care of the dog again.
Because of Brindle's age and his recent experience as a stray, he's getting a lot of overdue medical attention. Just this week, he had a couple of abscessed teeth extracted.
John Lynch wanted to help pay for that care, and he wrote out a check to Leavells Animal Hospital, where Brindle is a patient.
Then he and Rowley-- strangers united by love for a great dog--shook hands and parted.
Laura Moyer: 540/374-5417
Email: lmoyer@freelancestar.com
