Maryland Woman Loses Dog—He Turns Up in New Mexico Shelter 17 Days Later

While traveling in New Mexico for work, a truck driver had the worst experience a pet owner could go through—her dog ran away.

Roughiatou Sotelo's dog, named Panfilo, took off while they were in Santa Fe for her job. The dog owner returned to her home in Maryland empty-handed as she was unsuccessful in finding Panfilo. But she never gave up.

She constantly searched on the area's animal shelter websites and Facebook pages about lost-and-found pets to see if Panfilo just so happened to get posted. And sure enough, the stars aligned 17 days later.

Two-year-old Panfilo was picked up by the Santa Fe Animal Services and brought into the shelter as a stray. Then Panfilo showed up on the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society website.

The shelter's director of philanthropy Pamela Weese Powell explained that any dog who comes to the shelter from animal control goes through checkups, training and enrichment activities. A stray must wait seven days until it can be put on the adoption floor. Panfilo was on the adoption floor for about 10 days before they heard from Sotelo.

Sotelo called the Santa Fe Animal Shelter saying they had her dog. It took time for the shelter to confirm it was her dog as the microchip numbers did not match. Powell told Newsweek that it was probably human error that these numbers did not match. The adoption center instead confirmed it was her dog through photos she sent and two days later, Sotelo flew to Santa Fe from Maryland to pick up her dog.

The shelter posted the touching reunion to its Facebook page, which brought in 1,300 likes.

The Santa Fe Animal Shelter is the largest and only no-kill shelter in Northern New Mexico with a 95 percent live-release rate. Powell said they receive about 4,500 animals a year. The shelter has a reunification rate of about 40 percent.

The national reunification rate is smaller than that. Less than 23 percent of lost pets in the U.S. are reunited with their owners, according to Peeva, a pet technology company.

Each year 6.3 million pets are surrendered to U.S. shelters, which is an average of 17,260 a day, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Around 920,000 surrendered animals are euthanized every year. Shelters are striving to minimize euthanasia rates by promoting adoption campaigns, spaying and neutering programs, and behavior rehabilitation.

The shelter was incredibly surprised by the reunion, especially since Sotelo was coming from out of state and the dog was already with them for 17 days. The shelter even renamed him Hopper. The reunion, of course, included plenty of tears. The entire lobby was filled with people as they all knew Sotelo was coming for her dog.

"This is why we do what we do," said Powell. "The morale is so much higher when this happens."

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