I'll be honest, up until this past weekend, I didn't really believe in Christmas miracles. I'm not a Grinch by any means, but I'd never experienced a true Christmas miracle. I can now say that I am a believer.

I drove to Boise, Idaho to spend Christmas with my parents last week. In addition to everything else putting a damper on holiday celebrations this year, my parents' 14-year old Boston Terrior, Oscar had ran away on the evening of Monday, December 21. When I arrived in Boise on Wednesday, he was still missing. At that point, he had been gone for two days.

Throughout my visit, my parents and I drove through neighborhoods looking for him. Every time we went to look for him, we came back empty handed. By Saturday, we had began to lose hope. We had shared a post about him missing on various social media platforms in the Boise area, and hadn't heard a thing other than someone had possibly seen him on Wednesday. Another lead that ended up fruitless.

On Sunday afternoon, six days after Oscar went missing, my mom received a call on Facebook Messenger. A woman had apparently seen Oscar while hiking in the foothills above Boise a couple hours before. She agreed to meet us at the trailhead and hike back up to where she saw him. It was a three mile hike with a lot of vertical. To be honest, I was having a hard time believing that she had seen him after six days, especially way up in the foothills.

We followed her up to the spot where she had seen him. It was the end of the trail. There was a barbwire fence that was marked "No Trespassing." We called for him repeatedly to no avail. He was nowhere in sight. The lady who led us there decided to crawl under the fence and walk a little further. A few seconds later she said "here he is." I proceeded to crawl under the fence and walk up to her. I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was him! He was laying down under some sagebrush. He was about 10 miles from where my parents live. We have no idea how he managed to get all the way up to where he was in the foothills. He was incredibly malnourished and exhausted from his adventure and wasn't able to move much on his own. I carried him back down the trail on my shoulder. He didn't have any strength and appeared to have lost quite a bit of weight.

Jesse James
Jesse James
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I personally feel that the lady who led us to Oscar was an angel, and that finding him was truly a miracle. He's back at home now, and my dad was taking him into the vet to get checked out today. It was the best gift any of us could've asked for, and definitely made me a believer in Christmas miracles.

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