A lot of people love animals – some more than others. But few would undergo an arduous six-hour journey through difficult terrain to save the life of an animal they had never met before. If you are Tia Vargas however, that is exactly what you would do! So, when Tia and her father came across an injured dog while hiking, the pair knew they had to step in.

Tia and her dad found an injured dog on their hike

On a hiking trip, Tia and her father enjoyed the solitude that walking in the wild gave them. As they moved past the three-hour point in their hike, they came across an unexpected sight, an injured dog on the side of the trail. After checking the dog, they determined there was no way it would be able to walk. The two then contemplated what they would do next.

Tia decides to carry the dog down the mountain

“We decided that I would carry him down and look for help. He was pretty beat up, so he couldn’t walk,” Tia told Pickler & Ben. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life.”

So, picking the 55-pound dog up, the trio started making their way back down the mountain. To make the burden a little easier, Tia placed the injured dog across her shoulders. Unfortunately, the heavy dog was Tia’s burden to bear as her father, at 76-years-old, wasn’t strong enough to help. However, nothing could have prepared her for the journey she was about to face.

An arduous journey

At one point in the journey, Tia’s dad took a photo of her lying on a rock and taking a breather with the dog sitting on her chest.

“I was really dead. I wanted to stop. I wanted to quit. I was almost in tears. You know, every time that I would set him down, I would have to squat all the way down to my bum and then lay down so I could let him down gently so that I wouldn’t injure him anymore,” Tia said.

The trio reach civilization after six hours

Finally, the trio reached a small village after six hours of hiking through the rocky terrain. And while the dog, who the vets found out was named Boomer, had a long road to recovery, eventually, he was fine. All-in-all, he spent six weeks in a cast and had to have surgery on his paw.

Tia adopts Boomer

The dog’s owner related how Boomer had fallen off of a 100-foot cliff. Rolling for a few hundred feet more, his owners had left him, thinking there was no way he could have survived the fall. Luckily, for Boomer, that’s when Tia and her dad came along.

Tia eventually ended up adopting Boomer after his owners offered her the opportunity. She also started a group on Facebook for Boomer, where she posts about his day-to-day life.

“Boomer is part of our family now,” Tia told People. “I feel like there’s a reason why I was on the mountain at the very moment that he needed somebody to help. Both of us had a guardian angel that day.”

Watch the video below to hear more about their story!

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Source: Pickler & Ben