Dog Goes on the Road Trip of a Lifetime – You Won’t Believe How!
In what can be best described as a feel good story this Christmas, a stolen pitbull was rescued from West Virginia and reunited with his family in Butte, Montana in a rather unconventional way.
More than a dozen volunteers formed a relay team of drivers and in total drove over 2,000 miles to reunited the family!
From Fox2 News in Detroit, a family “friend” in Montana stole the dog a couple of months back and was pulled over by police in West Virginia. The cops found something out of place and after pulling over the person in the car, they tested the microchip in Zeus. Turns out that indeed, the dog was from Butte, Montana.
The Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association said that the person “basically robbed her blind stole her wallet, a number of things while she was at work including her dog Zeus… the friend was apprehended in Nitro (West Virginia)… and when he was arrested Zeus was still with him.”
Zeus – courtesy of the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association
Why not just Fly the Dog Home?
Seems like a simple solution, right? In today’s society where emotional support animals are getting out of control, just put Zeus here on the plane and voila! Well, it turns out that the majority of commercial airlines ban pit bulls from flying, so the organization Many Paws Volunteer Transport made a relay team of drivers to get Zeus back across the country.
It took 4 days and over 15 drivers. Here’s some of the awesome photos of Zeus making his cross country journey.
Zeus – courtesy of the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association
Zeus – courtesy of the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association
Zeus – courtesy of the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association
Zeus – courtesy of the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association
“While Zeus’ journey is a heartwarming holiday story, it’s just a glimpse into what animal welfare organizations do 365 days per year, in order to save pets’ lives and reunite families. Afterall, it’s #allforlove. #whywerescue,†the association added.
The hard part? A lot of the “overnights” had to be specially arranged as well because many cities would not allow Zeus to overnight in people’s homes due to local dog restrictions. What an effort…
If you’d like to see an awesome short Facebook video from Kansas City, a local reporter helped make the hand-off. It’s really heartwarming and amazing. Check it out!
And on that note, donate to your local humane society, while you’re at it 🙂
