Dog missing for months ends up at shelter where her owner works. ‘It was surely fate’
A dog was missing for months — until she ended up at the same Alabama shelter where her owner works.
Cheyenne Campbell was at her job when a dog kept whining and wagging her tail. She suspected it was her pup Emma, whom she hadn’t seen since late summer. Her hunch was spot on, leading to an emotional reunion.
“Emma ran straight to her, and she picked her up and just started licking her all in the face,” Jenny Harris, assistant manager at 2nd Chance Shelter, told McClatchy News in a Feb. 13 phone interview. “Cheyenne started crying, which made us all teary. And we couldn’t believe it. We were very excited because you could see how much she loved her mama.”
The heartwarming moments unfolded in early February, about one or two years after Emma was rescued from a road. Then, five months ago, she went outside to use the bathroom and didn’t come back to Campbell’s home.
“She had been searching for her everywhere,” Harris said. “She had gone door to door, checking all the sites and just called around trying to find her. But nobody in the whole neighborhood had seen her.”
A few months later, a good Samaritan living about 10 miles away spotted a dog. The woman didn’t have luck finding the pup’s owners, so she brought her to the shelter in Boaz, a roughly 70-mile drive northeast from Birmingham.
When the dog arrived, 2nd Chance workers noticed that she was “nervous” and “timid.” But that behavior changed when she heard a familiar voice.
“Emma was behind the counter and when Cheyenne started talking, Emma went crazy wagging her tail and jumping,” the shelter wrote in a Feb. 12 Facebook post.
That’s when Emma finally saw her owner again after so much time apart. After the long-awaited reunion, Harris said the pup is adjusting well to life back at home.
“We are all so happy that she was found and nothing bad had happened to her before she was rescued and reunited with her family,” the shelter wrote. “It was surely fate that brought Emma to the shelter where her mama works.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 10:33 AM with the headline "Dog missing for months ends up at shelter where her owner works. ‘It was surely fate’."
