‘This seems impossible.’ Dog missing from Houston for 13 years found in Fort Worth
Aaron Webster cradled the floppy ears of the scared and hurt five-pound Yorkshire terrier and he knew.
About 13 years earlier, the Houston man had bought the dog from an Iowa breeder and gave him to his wife for her birthday. The newborn puppy, which they named Remington, had boundless energy, prancing up and down a flight of stairs that must have seemed like Mount Everest to him, Webster said. And his ears were so big everyone began calling them “Yoda ears.”
But one day, Webster brought Remington to his parents’ house and let him out into their fenced-in side yard. When he went back to check on his pet a few minutes later, the dog was gone, with no sign as to what happened.
Years passed and life went on. Webster and his wife had three sons. They got a Wheaten terrier.
And then on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, Webster got a call from a Fort Worth rescue shelter saying they had a dog who — judging by the microchip implanted in his body — belonged to him. So he and one of his sons set out driving to bring Remington home.
When Webster approached the dog, he was hard to recognize after all the years. He was thin, blind in both eyes and had several missing teeth and a wound on his cheek.
His ears, however, were still large and floppy as ever.
This was Remington.
“This dog has been through hell,” Webster said. “But we felt like if we could bring him into our home and give him a peaceful existence for however much longer he has, he deserves that.”
‘This seems impossible’
An officer with Fort Worth Animal Control found the dog in early February, after a concerned citizen reported finding a senior Yorkshire terrier, the department wrote on Facebook. The stray was thin and wounded with painful-looking matted fur.
McKenzie Smith, a volunteer with the Saving Hope rescue shelter in Fort Worth, said animal control reached out to the shelter and they took over.
The shelter began trying to determine who this dog belonged to and where his home was.
They found three microchips planted inside the dog, Smith said, meaning multiple people must have had him over the years without making an effort to return him home. They focused on the chip that had been there the longest, which led them to Webster.
After someone with Saving Hope explained the situation to Webster over the phone and heard the backstory, Smith said, they were excited at the prospect of reuniting a family with their long-lost pet.
“It was their first family member,” she said of Remington. “It was their little baby.”
Webster said he was shocked to receive the call. He and his wife had spent weeks in 2007 hanging posters and looking for the dog after he went missing, and they figured he was gone.
“This seems impossible,” Webster remembers saying over the phone.
But the shelter sent pictures and it looked like his dog. Plus: How else could he explain the microchip?
His main concern was that Remington was healthy enough to continue to have a quality of life. If the dog was severely ill or in pain, Webster said, they would want to do whatever the veterinarians decided was the most humane. They wouldn’t want the dog to suffer.
Smith said vets cared for the dog, treating his open wound and removing three pounds of matted fur.
A veterinarian eventually determined that, despite the injuries Remington had suffered, he had a strong heart and was healthy enough to return home.
The decision was easy for Webster.
“I get how crazy this is — recover a dog that you lost that many years ago. That probably doesn’t happen every day,” he said. “But I don’t think anything we’ve done is exceptional. I think most people who have some care for living creatures ... would do the same thing.”
Someone from Saving Hope captured a video of their reunion in Fort Worth and shared it to Facebook, where it’s been viewed thousands of times.
Smith’s favorite moment was when Webster’s son, who wasn’t alive when his father bought the dog, smiled and declared this was their dog.
“It looked like he had kind of always known the dog,” she said.
Bringing Remington home
After Webster and his son drove back to Houston, Remington slept for three days. The dog was “exhausted” and “sheepish,” unlike that excited puppy all those years ago, Webster said.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is easy. Low-maintenance dog,’” he said.
But it didn’t take Remington long to return to his old self.
As he has been eating and drinking each day, Webster said, he has been able to gain his strength and his energy back — as well as his personality. He doesn’t like being alone and will cry out when he wants attention or to cuddle. He’s a “sweet guy,” Webster said, who has an “incredible nature” given the circumstances he’s faced.
For the three sons of the house, it’s like they have a new dog to get accustomed to, Webster said. And with Remington blind and recovering from injuries, he said, the family needs to take special care of him.
That’s what they plan on doing, helping the pup they thought was gone forever.
“So far,” Webster said, “he seems to be in pretty good spirits.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 4:44 PM.
