Coco, a beagle

Wayward beagle reunited with family after 350-mile sojourn
Friday, September 25th, 2009


LAKE ELSINORE — Three months ago, Coco the beagle wandered away from his Central California suburban home. After weeks of searching, the Zamora family assumed the worst and gave up hope of ever finding him.

“We were heartbroken. Coco was nowhere to be found,” Albert Zamora said. “We walked through our neighborhood every night for two weeks. We called local shelters and put up flyers and heard nothing.”

Today, Coco is back home with his family after a mysterious 350-mile journey to Riverside County. His sojourn ended with a joyous reunion at the Animal Friends of the Valleys (AFV) shelter in Lake Elsinore.

It came to a close after a Lake Elsinore resident saw a beagle and Chihuahua running along busy Central Avenue and stopped to pick them up. The resident then transported them to AFV, which provides contract animal control services to Temecula, Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake and Murrieta. The nonprofit organization, which was established in 1987, offers pets for adoption and operates a shelter that serves nearly 10,000 animals each year.

The two corralled dogs were checked in by shelter staff, cleaned up and scanned for the presence of implanted microchips.

“When dogs are microchipped, we are able to return them to their owners about 90 percent of the time,” said Willa Bagwell, AFV executive director. “Thankfully, the beagle had a microchip, but we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw his address.”

“Often, families will move and not update the contact information for their pet’s microchip. We were worried that was what had happened,” she said. The shelter staff contacted Zamora, who found it hard to believe his dog was safe and sound 350 miles from his home in Livingston, a suburb of Modesto.

“I was totally amazed when I answered the phone. I had never even been to Lake Elsinore before and couldn’t imagine how Coco had ended up there,” Zamora said. “I didn’t tell the kids right away because I still thought they might have had the wrong dog.”

As a result, one day after he dropped off his children at school, Zamora set off for Lake Elsinore to bring Coco back home. After driving for more than seven hours, a tired Zamora was greeted by six AFV employees who had stayed after hours to help with the reunion. Zamora walked over to a cage and found a happy Coco ready to go home. Zamora slipped Coco’s collar on him and said, “Okay, buddy, time to come home.”

The pair made it home a little after midnight and Zamora woke up the children the following morning with the news.

“They were elated. This was such a big surprise for them,” Zamora said.

How Coco ended up in Lake Elsinore so far from home remains a mystery.

“It was such a neat moment to witness; we all wish we could know this dog’s story,” Bagwell said. “These happy endings remind us why we do what we do, and with the advent of microchips we’ve had a lot more stories that end like this.”

AFV offers microchipping at its Lake Elsinore shelter from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and also hosts microchip clinics at the Lake Elsinore PetSmart and Petco stores every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The shelter provides the service for a one-time $20 fee and lifetime registration. Thanks to microchip technology, AFV returns 30 to 35 pets to their owners every month, Bagwell said.

“Coco had been wearing a collar but it fell off when he broke out of the yard,” Zamora said. “All he had left was the microchip. We got it just to be safe but never thought it would lead to something like this.”

Source: http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/40960/