Categories
Dog Stories Dogs

Woman Discovers Shelter Dog Has A Family, Makes 2,500 Mile Trip to Return Her

Dogs escape all the time. Even the best dogs will sometimes escape through that open gate, loose fence board, or an escape tunnel. Often they will run off without even telling their owners. Sometimes, they don’t remember the way home.

Most lost pups don’t travel over 5,000 miles. One shelter dog is making headlines for doing just that.

Zooey, the name the shelter gave her, was an immediate hit with the staff. She was clearly not a stray. She was mostly clean and well behaved. But they couldn’t find her owners. She was picked up in Houston.

The 1-year-old boxer was picked up in Houston.

‘Zooey’ was at the shelter for about a week when they put her in a foster home.

After her time with her foster family, her owner still hadn’t reached out. She was transferred to another non-profit (Ruff Start) in Minnesota.

“We were told that she was really, really sweet, and very dog friendly,” said Ruff Start’s Lexi Johnson. Even though Zooey was a total sweetheart, knew basic commands, and was house broken, Johnson realized she had discovered Zooey had no hearing. That kept her from finding a new family.

In Zooey’s case, that was  good thing. After four months, her family finally tracked her down.

Zooey’s real name is Penelope, and her owner Mandy Lyons never stopped looking for her.

After the organizations verified that Mandy was her real owner, they arranged to drive Penelope back to Texas, a total of 5200 miles during Penelope’s journey.

Johnson flew from Minnesota to witness the reunion. Cameras and members of the Harris County Rescue center were there as well.

It took a second for Penelope to realize where she was and who she was looking at.

It took half a second for Penelope to realize where she was, and who she was looking at

Penelope couldn’t believe her eyes. She was seeing her mom again after a wild adventure across the country.

According to Johnson, “[Penelope] looked at her, and she looked at her again and was like, ‘Is this real?’And then she went over there, she was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is it.’ I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.”

“I was so happy and sad at the same time,” admits Johnson “I was happy because they were reunited, but sad because … it’s heartbreaking to think that it was five months when she was without her mama.”

Images via Houston and Harris County Animal Volunteers

Source: The Dodo

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *