A dog lost in Florida was surrendered a year and half later to a shelter in Long Island and is to be reunited with her family – but they need help getting her there.
An animal shelter in Long Island is hoping to get a dog back to her rightful family 1,200 miles away in West Palm Beach, Florida. It has been over a year and a half since the family last saw their dog.
The dog, Relay, is a shepherd mix. It seems like fate that the dog has turned up at all.
On September 12th, a woman brought in a stray dog to Bobbi and The Strays animal shelter, according to Myra Kennet, a volunteer.
When the shelter scanned the dog’s microchip, they found it a bit unusual to discover that the owner was located in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Because of the recent hurricane activity on September 10th and 11th, it was initially difficult to get in contact with the owners; the storm knocked out cell phone service and electricity in many areas, including the area where Relay’s family is located.
Two days after the storm had concluded, 18-year old Richard Moneck said he received a call from a number he didn’t recognize. When the caller said that they were a New York rescue trying to locate the owner of a dog, he thought it was a scam.
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But when the person on the phone began relaying the information to him, he was shocked. He couldn’t believe they’d found his dog so far away, and after such a long time.
Richard’s father, Rick Moneck, recounted how the family had adopted Relay after she turned up at the warehouse of a friend back in 2014. She was a puppy at the time.
While Relay was happy and often played with the family’s other dog, she managed to escape the fenced-in backyard one day, which is the last time the family saw her.
The family searched high and low for Relay for months. They posted flyers, went door to door, and visited local businesses asking if anyone had seen her. The only hopeful evidence they had was some fuzzy video footage from a local gas station, which actually showed a man picking Relay up and putting her into his car.
After a while, the family concluded that Relay was either dead, or with somebody else. They hoped she was just with somebody else.
But Moneck insisted to his friends and family that the dog would turn up someday, somehow.
And now, by some miracle, she has.
But the family and the shelter need help reuniting Relay with her rightful owners. The family cannot afford the expenses of going to get her all the way up in New York.
The shelter is asking for volunteers to help drive Relay down to Florida. This can often be done by multiple individuals, each taking a leg of the trip to deliver animals in need of homes.
Anyone who can help with this effort is being asked to call the shelter at 516-378-4340.
The family is ecstatic to get their beloved dog back, and can’t wait to be reunited with her.
And if you find a stray pet, the first thing you should do is bring it to the local shelter or veterinarian to get scanned for a microchip.
Remember to always microchip your animals – you never know where they will be found!
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