GRAND PRAIRIE (1080 KRLD) - A Fort Worth woman's nearly 24-hour ordeal has a happy ending.
On Tuesday morning, someone stole Mackenzie Koch's SUV from her south Fort Worth apartment complex's parking lot.
Koch's golden retriever, Riggins, was in the SUV at the time.
Just as any concerned dog parent would do, Koch, a former student-athlete at TCU, launched an all-out effort to find Riggins and bring him home.
Grand Prairie Officer Roy Gray was alerted to the SUV the following morning.
"It came in from just a concerned citizen who had seen the vehicle parked in the parking lot for an extended period of time with the engine running," says Ofc. Gray. "And we showed up (and) ran the plate, and it just turned out to be a stolen car."
And inside that SUV was Koch's precious dog.
"There was good ol' Riggins in the very back," says Gray, "pretty ornery at the time, obviously."
A short time later, Koch got the call that she had longed to get.
"I think it was like, 'Ma'am, do you have a dog named Riggins?'" says Koch. "And literally I think I dropped to my knees and just started bawling."
Koch says she got the call just as she was starting to get discouraged while clinging to hope.
"Literally within five minutes of reminding myself that, 'Hey, God's watching over your dog, God's got this under control,' they called me with the greatest news I've ever heard in my life," Koch says.
And soon thereafter, dog and dog mother were reunited.
As for the man who stole her SUV, he still has not been found -- not that Koch plans on filing any charges.
"I have no intentions of him paying any kind of consequence for this," Koch says. "I'm very grateful, honestly, that he ... left my dog."
Koch says from now on, she will never let Riggins out of her sight.
"There was actually a company that messaged me about sending Riggins a tracking device to put on his collar," Koch says. "And I said I'm taking everything I can. This dog is not going to take a step without me knowing about it."
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