ROCKPORT — When Lars, a 10-year-old, started calling outside Monday evening for his lost dog, his mother thought, well, if it makes him feel better, let him.

Little did she know, it’s possible that the Lars’ voice carried half a mile down the road, just strong enough for Murphy, the young puppy, 7 months old, to catch a familiar and safe voice on the wind. 

A man caught a glimpse of the grey Weimaraner, just a hint of movement darting onto the street. It was just after 9 p.m., when dusk was fading into darkness. Was that the lost dog everyone was looking for, the man asked himself, grabbing his phone and calling the number that has been listed on fliers and on Facebook for the past 48 hours.

“I think I just saw your dog come out of Kramer Park,” he told Diana DesGrosseilliers Castle. “I said ‘Murphy,’ and he pricked up his ears and ran down the street.”

That street was Pascal Ave., which runs through Rockport Village, from the Goose River Bridge and Kramer Park to the intersection with Route 1. Kramer Park hugs the river as it empties into the harbor, and is lined on both sides with old lime tailings. It is a wooded area, and there is much wildlife that lives there, making their homes in the privacy of the trees.

At the home of the Castles, further down Pascal Ave., and closer to Route 1, Diana hung up the phone from talking with the man, and told Lars, “Murphy’s trying to find us.”

It was time to again to hunt for him. They had been doing that since Saturday, through the neighborhoods where he had been spotted, into the Bog in Camden, over to the woods of Rockport.

Murphy had been on the run since falling out of Diana’s SUV in downtown Camden, on Saturday, in the late morning. The community had been on the alert, and the shares on Facebook of his Missing Dog profile had spread like wildfire.

The community at large had been helping the Castles search for Murphy. One man spent all afternoon Saturday helping the Castles call for the young dog. The bumper sticker on his van, Diana said, read, “Make America Kind Again.”

A stranger spent hours of his time helping their family, and that amazes Diana.

“I am so appreciative of how the community came together,” she said. “People who I know, people I didn’t know, all helped to look for this dog. With everything that is going on, they helped us.”

On Monday night, after talking to another kind person on the phone, Diana moved quickly from the back of the house to the front, ready to get in the car with Lars and go search for Murphy.

As she opened the front door, Murphy came bounding into the house.

“Just as I opened the door!” exclaimed Diana.

He was tired, hungry, and suffered soft tissue injuries from when he had been hit by a car on Saturday near Curtis Ave. Not enough to wound him horribly; nonetheless, he was hurting.

The story started Saturday, Diana was driving in downtown Camden. As she made a corner, with the back windows of the SUV rolled down for the dogs in the backseat, she thinks perhaps Baxter, the family’s older and heftier Weimaraner, shoved up against Murphy just enough that he was launched out the window.

She doesn’t think he jumped out.

People told her they saw him standing on the side of the road, dazed and confused. And that’s when he started running. Running fast, running hard, and not stopping for anyone.

He crossed Route 1 several times, and while he was spotted in the Bog, a thickly wooded area of Camden, he was so spooked he remained on the run. He was later seen at Quarry Hill, and on Union Street in Rockport.

On Sunday, someone reported that Murphy was in the vicinity of Kramer Park. The Castles set food out there, and they scented the area with belongings of his home. Baxter accompanied them to Kramer Park, and he sensed that Murphy had been there.

But darkness came, and Murphy spent another night alone in the woods, as Sunday reeled into Monday, and then toward night, once again.

When Lars stepped outside to call Murphy Monday night, it was boy’s determined attempt to find his dog. And his dog found him.

For Diana, the reassuring beauty of what happened this past weekend lies in the supportive response of so many people helping her family to find Murphy.

“To make a local family important and valued, when so much else in the world is going on,” she said, “is truly amazing.”

On Tuesday, Murphy was on the mend, resting under Diana’s feet, after being tended to by Dr. Stacey Contakos, a veterinarian and owner of Camden Hospital for Animals.

“He’s exhausted, and hungry,” said Diana. And he’s home.

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657