“Today she smelled me and she starts wagging her little tail,” Vanessa said. “She’s already 15, but she gets so excited when she sees me now. I’m thinking she’s trying to remember who I am.”
Flor now shares her home with a lively household: kittens, another Chihuahua and a Yorkie, plus four boys.
And one of those boys has given himself a very important job. According to his mother, he stands guard near Flor so nobody bothers her.
The big sister they only knew from photographs now has her own little bodyguard.
Vanessa says she is overwhelmed by how many people pitched in to bring Flor back to her. And when you count them up, it really is quite a list.
A woman from Louisiana who stopped to rescue a frightened little dog from the roadside. Staff at an Indiana animal control centre who scanned her and held her safely. Volunteers who stayed open late on a weeknight. A team of volunteer microchip detectives. A shelter director who answered an email on her week off. And a volunteer who drove across a state line after a full day at work.
Not one of them had to do it. Every one of them did.
“It’s everything you could want for a senior dog to kind of live out whatever’s left of her life,” Ohanian said.
There is a practical lesson here too, and the people involved were keen to share it.
Garlow said Flor’s story is a reminder to microchip every pet, and to keep your contact details up to date, because a reunion can still happen even a decade later.
“Accidents happen, and once a pet is missing, it is too late to have them microchipped,” she said.
So if you have a furry family member of your own, tonight might be a good night to check that their microchip still has your current phone number.
You never know which kind stranger might be holding them one day, hoping to find you.
Welcome home, Flor. Your family never stopped waiting.
Photo: Illustrative image of a Chihuahua (not Flor) by JackyM59, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources: NBC Chicago; Evanston RoundTable