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Fairdale's "Miracle Dog" Missy Killed By Car Outside Her New Home

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Missy, the "miracle dog" who survived a deadly tornado in Fairdale two years ago, was struck and killed by a car outside her new home near Genoa on Tuesday.

The white German Shepherd was the flesh-and-blood representation of survival and perseverance for many people in Fairdale, after a twister flattened the Schultz family home and much of the community around them in April 2015.

Clem Schultz lost his wife, Geraldine, and virtually everything he owned to the tornado.

Missy ran off during the storm, but was found alive one day later, running in a field a mile south of town, leading some to christen her the "miracle dog."

Schultz's daughter, Sue Frazier, said Missy and her father were attached at the hip after the tornado.

Fairdale "Miracle Dog" Missy
Missy, a German Shepherd who became known as the "miracle dog" after surviving a deadly tornado in Fairdale, Illinois, in April 2015. (Source: Clem Schultz)

"That was his world after that tornado, because that's all he had left," Frazier said.

Schultz said Missy loved to play fetch, catch Frisbees, and run.

"She was a runner. She loved to run, and she was fast," he said.

Tornado Dog Found
Missy, a German shepherd, was found alive in Fairdale, a day after a deadly tornado in April 2015. (Source: TR Robinson/Facebook)

Tragically, Missy was not fast enough to outrun a speeding silver car that hit her and kept going on Tuesday, after she had chased a garbage truck going in the opposite direction on Nelms Road, outside their new home near Genoa, where Schultz relocated after the tornado in Fairdale.

"I saw this fast road, and I looked at my dog, and I said 'You stay off that road, because it's going to get you,' but she loved to chase cars, and I couldn't break her of it," Schultz said.

Just that morning, Schultz had bragged about his canine princess on Facebook.

"I said 'If God made anything better than a dog, he kept it for himself,' and about two hours later, she was gone. I guess God must have wanted her," he said.

Schultz, 86, personally dug Missy's grave and buried her.

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