Nobody knows why, but Haley Collins jumped ship at the Tanner intersection last Thursday and kept on running.

The 3-year-old boxer was riding in the bed of Dale Collins’ pickup about 9 a.m. as he approached the intersection of U.S. 31 and Browns Ferry Road.

“I was fixin’ to stop, and she just jumped out,” Dale said. “She ran toward the nursery. I stopped a gentleman who said she went the other direction.”

For two hours, Dale wandered the area searching and calling for Haley. No luck.

He telephoned his wife, Traci, a registered nurse at Athens-Limestone Hospital, who headed out to help search before she had to go to work.

One the way, Traci told her son, Logan, that his beloved dog was missing.

“He fell to pieces,” Traci said. “He was crying and crying, and I told him, ‘Just pray and God will hear you praying, and maybe she will come home some day.’”

But all Logan could think about was Haley’s absence.

She was one of his best buddies. Every day after school, before he did his homework, Logan went outside to play with two of the family’s dogs — Haley and another boxer named Ruby.

“I like to lay on the ground and let them get all over me,” said the fourth-grader at Athens Bible School.

Before nightfall, Dale searched the area again. No Haley.

On Friday morning, Traci looked again for the lost boxer and called the dog pound to report Haley missing. Her brother-in-law, Neal Flaherty of Athens, also searched for the dog Friday after work.

On Sunday, the Collinses looked again for Haley on their way home from church.

On Monday, Traci was busy at work when Twila, who worked 10-to-15 feet away in the finance department, stopped to speak to her.

Twila Fritze had no idea Traci had just lost a dog, but she knew Traci had a soft spot for animals, so she told her how a dog had walked into her yard at Houston Place near Tanner on Saturday. She had seen the dog Thursday, but thought it must belong to one of the construction workers laboring in the area.