Animal Shelter Reunion a Heart-Warming Moment

HARRISON – The morning of Thursday, March 25 was an especially rewarding time at the Clare County Animal Shelter. That was the day Ben Brackney of Oak Grove, Kentucky, was reunited with his dog Junior.

Their separation began last October when Junior was lost as Brackney vacationed in the area. Brackney did report the missing dog to Animal Control but had to return home without his furry friend.

In an old reel-to-reel movie, this would be when images of flipping calendar pages mark the passage of time: Halloween passes; Thanksgiving passes; New Year’s passes; Valentine’s Day passes.

Then the scene moves to the current day.

Rudi Hicks, director of Animal Control, said a Feb. 18 call reported a dog was running in the area near East Avenue in Frost Township.

“We sighted the dog, but were unable to catch it,” Hicks said. “We set a live trap on Feb. 19 and caught the dog on Feb. 22.”

She said the dog was so aggressive that Animal Control officers and staff were unable to touch it at all.

“Usually, dogs here at the shelter settle down,” Hicks said. “But this dog continued to remain aggressive throughout his stay here.”

That meant the dog was deemed “unadoptable.” Still, the dog’s picture was placed on the shelter’s Facebook page with the hope its owner might come forward.

“Hurray, it worked!” she said. “He was so happy that his dog had been found.”

Thus it was that Brackney came to drive up from Kentucky on Wednesday, and claim Junior first thing Thursday morning.

“Junior was sooooo happy to see him,” Hicks said. “No aggression at all.”

Hicks said that, unfortunately, because the dog was found at least eight miles from where it went missing and more than four months after the fact, staff didn’t connect the captured aggressive dog with the one reported missing many months prior.

“We’re unsure how this dog managed to live for four months through the worst of the winter,” she said. “We trapped him in an abandoned house.”

And now, one happy dog and his person are proof of how fortunate it was that they did.