This pet dog from Maryland went missing in Maine during nine days and nights of insanely cold weather, and it was only rescued after it was hit by a car that nearly killed it. How's your January going?

CBS Baltimore reports that the sad dog originally got separated from the family during a trip to Maine. For reasons that will forever be unknown, "Dempsey" the dog jumped a six-foot fence and vanished into the freezing woods.

After days of fruitless searching, the family had to go back to Maryland for work. Temperatures in Maine fell below zero every night. And Dempsey is not one of those snow dogs from a Jack London story—Dempsey is just a regular little dog of some kind, maybe a boxer? Not the typical breed to survive for endless frigid nights in the Maine woods, that much is certain.

What we do know is that Dempsey got hit by a car, at night, on the ninth night of its nightmare ordeal. Some people who didn't even own the dog somehow heard about a random stray dog hit by a car nearby, so they followed the tracks in the snow and found Dempsey in an outbuilding, preparing to die.

Instead, the skinny and nearly dead Dempsey was rushed to the veterinarians. The dog had a broken leg and was dehydrated and starving and deeply sad about all that had happened to it, for no real reason.

Dempsey is recovering now, and has been reunited with his family. It is impossible to know what a dog is thinking, but is it so wrong for us to assume he's thinking about how much he hates Maine?

[Image via CBS Baltimore.]