Rowlett Student Awarded Scholarship For Finding Dog
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ROWLETT (CBSDFW.COM) — Rowlett High School student Zack Pavageau received a $1,000 scholarship and driver's course gift certificate for reuniting Cujo, a missing dog, with his owner.
Cujo, a 10-year-old miniature pinscher, escaped from a yard on Aug. 27, according to an email from Monica Kizziar, a friend of Cujo's owner Carrie Williams. Kizziar said Williams and her friends, dubbed "Team Cujo," conducted an exhaustive, city-wide search that included the formation of a Facebook group, placing flyers and traps around town and Williams smelling piles of dog poop to create a trail, since Cujo's has a very distinct odor. She said Pavageau found Cujo on Thursday, four weeks after the dog escaped, and the team wanted to reward him.
The ninth-grader was playing in a 12-foot-deep concrete culvert less than 1 mile from Williams' home when he saw Cujo, Kizziar said. She said Pavageau then called his father, who found Williams' phone number on one of the posters. His father sent Williams a picture of the dog.
"She confirmed that was him, and she called me bawling," Kizziar said. At the time, Kizziar was at her office near the area where Pavageau found the dog, while Williams was at work in Bedford.
Kizziar picked up Cujo, who Pavageau had enticed into a crate, and took him to Lake Ray Hubbard Emergency Pet Care Center in Mesquite. Cujo had lost 3 pounds but suffered no injuries, she said.
Williams met Kizziar at the vet and was reunited with her pooch.
"It was the happiest reunion ever," Kizziar said.
Cujo stayed overnight on an IV, and an anonymous donor paid the $1,000 vet bill, she said.
To reward Pavageau, Kizziar, Williams and Team Cujo members gathered Friday to present the high school student with a $1,000 scholarship from Gmac Family Financial of Rowlett, a financial-planning company for which Kizziar is a certified college adviser, and a $360 gift certificate for a driver's course at Safe Start Driving School.
"This is a story that has prompted people to come together, given hope to those that needed it [and] restored faith in humanity," Kizziar said. "Overall, [this] is a love story with the most happy of endings."
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