Tornado Recovery: Family dog ‘Zeus’ survives storm, recovering from leg injury

A family’s dog, Zeus, is one of many animals to survive the outbreak of tornadoes Memorial Day night, but not without injury along the way.

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"Zeus was the only one that had a major injury," said Dr. Jim Mathias of Tipp City Veterinary Hospital.

When the storms hit the area, Zeus broke away from his owners and ran to the upstairs of their home, refusing to come down.

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The residence was one of many to be destroyed, with Zeus somewhere inside.

“The people were really shocked that he came back because the house was gone,” he said.

The dog turned out to be a survivor, but suffered a serious leg injury.

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“Zeus came in two days after the Memorial Day tornadoes and it was a real surprise to us. He had a deep gash in his leg and it had mud and debris in it, things like that,” Mathias said.

Zeus was taken to Tipp City Veterinary Hospital, where he was cared for and is now set to make a full recovery.

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“It’s gratifying to me as a veterinarian, we get to see results pretty quickly and it’s so nice to be able to see that. We see this dog that was just really traumatized and now wagging his tail, very happy, the people are happy, so yeah it’s a good feeling,” Mathias said.

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