LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. — A Lake Oswego woman has finally connected with her dog after it ran away more than a year ago. The dog was well taken care of thanks to local businesses that were just two miles away from her.
Earlier this month, she was finally reunited with him after thinking she would never see him again.
“We definitely lost a lot of hope because getting a dog back after a long time is such an unusual occurrence,” said Brenna Foy.
It was the summer of 2019 when Foy adopted a pug Chihuahua mix, but they never got a chance to spend any quality time together, except for the ride home from the adoption facility. When she got home, they spent a total of 15 minutes together before the dog took off, and hadn't been seen from since.
That is until earlier this month when she got a call from Kimber Hysell, the director of Waggin Tails Search and Rescue. A business along Southwest 72nd Avenue in the Tigard area reached out to her about a stray dog that people had been feeding for months.
Hysell spent a total of 151 days trying to rescue the dog. She even slept inside her car some nights just to try get the dog she named “Smudge,” but a chain-link fence and a steep incline made it difficult for her to get to him.
“There were nights when we set traps, that we slept in our cars outside of the parking lot waiting for him,” said Hysell.
Her hard work of leaving treats and setting traps finally paid off. She was finally able to set a trap to get Smudge, who didn’t run away too far, just over two miles from where Foy lived in Lake Oswego.
Thanks to her hard work, Foy and Smudge are finally back together, and thankfully Smudge was micro-chipped before he ran off more than a year ago.