Walpole family's dog survives tangle with train

The wide-eyed, 5-year-old pug has earned the moniker "Max the miracle dog" after an MBTA commuter train passed over the tiny dog but, amazingly, left him unscathed.

"I was so glad, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without him," Robin Lennon, Max's owner and a West Street resident, said yesterday.

Last night Max returned to the train station to share kisses with the two train employees who cared for him Friday.

"You poor thing, you've been through a lot," Pete Tomassini, the assistant conductor, said upon seeing Max.

While pulling away from the Walpole Station depot early Friday morning, locomotive engineer Kym Berry noticed a small dog dash onto the tracks and begin running ahead of the train. Berry threw on the emergency brakes, but as the train slowed it ran directly over the dog.

"I thought I hit him," Berry said. As with any time the engineer pulls the emergency brakes, Berry asked crew members to step off the train and do a brake test.

"They got off the train, and they said, We found your little friend under the third car,' " Berry recalled. "I was pretty upset, because I thought I had hit him. When they called up, I was ecstatic."

Because the animal had no tags, Tomassini carried the nervous, cowering pug to the engineer's cabin. Berry laid out newspapers for the dog to sit on, a passenger donated yarn for a makeshift leash and soon enough the creature was basking in the attention from passengers and crewmembers.

Once the train returned to Boston, Berry contacted the Walpole Police Department, which had heard from Lennon about the missing dog. Max had escaped from the Lennons fenced-in back yard earlier that morning.

Meanwhile, because Berry had to continue working, Tomassini took Max to his home in Hull for the afternoon, where he fed and walked the pet. Later in the day Tomassini took Max back on the commuter rail, where the dog was reunited with the Lennons.

"I freaked out and didn't stop holding him," said 16-year-old Liane Lennon. "It was the happiest feeling seeing him again."

After his adventure, Max spent about 12 hours sleeping when he returned home.

"It was a miracle that he wasn't killed," Robin Lennon said. "I give my gratitude, (the crew) went above and beyond the call of their job."

Greg Duggan can be reached at 781-433-8355 or at gduggan@cnc.com.