Trudy, a german shepherd

Stories like this one burn me up. But there is beauty in this story in our hero, the sister-in-law, who did what she could to help the strangers from her home accross the country. There's so much to learn from this story, including the audacity that some people have, the power of internet sites like DogDetective, and the reality that you don't have to be there to hang fliers and physically search for a lost dog in order to help someone reunite with their companion. There are plenty of ways you can help from afar. Enjoy the story.

Dog Found Thousands of Miles From Home Reunited With Family
May 23, 2008

It's hard to believe, but a dog, lost in Jessamine County nearly a month ago, has been found more than a thousand miles away.

Tom and Debbie Griswald's 9-month-old German Shepherd, Trudy, disappeared on April 25th.

Tom tells 27 NEWSFIRST, "I had pretty well decided that Trudy was dead, that the coyotes had gotten her because I couldn't imagine anyone picking up a dog in that good of condition with a collar and not trying to find the owner."

What they didn't know is that a woman had picked up the dog in a restaurant parking lot in Nicholasville and driven it to her home in Texas. She even renamed the dog Lexie.

But then, on May 1st, the Griswalds got a break in the form of an e-mail from the Texas woman's sister-in-law in Vermont. Debbie Griswald recalls, "The Vermont woman saw Trudy on Dog Detective.com and said her sister-in-law picked up a dog, a female German Shepherd, in the Lexington area in April. She wondered if that could be our Trudy."

Luckily, the Griswalds had implanted a micro chip identifier in Trudy, and authorities in Montgomery County, Texas were able to determine that the dog there did indeed belong to the Kentucky couple.

Tom and Debbie now give the lady who took the dog the benefit of the doubt, sort of.

Tom Griswald says, "Misguided Samaritan I think is what I've finally come to call her. I had some other names before."

Police in Texas say the woman will probably not face any charges.

Trudy was flown from Houston to Lexington Thursday night where her grateful owners were waiting to be reunited with her.

Source: http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/19177479.html