A Chicago woman broke down in tears as she was reunited with her chihuahua 12 years after the dog vanished while Antonino was living in her car.
Vanessa Antonino, who had not seen her pet since 2014, embraced the now 16-year-old Flor at the Evanston Animal Shelter in a moment captured on video. The dog was discovered scampering by a roadside in Geary, Indiana, roughly 30 miles from Chicago, following a recent storm.
“There was a time in my life when I wasn’t put together. I was from place to place, living in my car, staying in my car, and Flor was there with me through everything,” Antonino said.
The disappearance had left deep scars. Antonino was living in her car with the 4-year-old chihuahua in 2014 when she left for work and returned to find the pup gone. She frantically searched but came up empty, and the years stretched on without answers.
“I had not fully given up on her, but it’s just like ‘so many years had passed,’ and I was like ‘I don’t think I’ll ever see her again,'” she said.
Over the next decade, Antonino rebuilt her life. She had three children and would sometimes show them a photograph of Flor, describing the dog as their big sister.
The break in the case came when a woman from Louisiana who was helping with storm damage in Indiana spotted the small dog near some roads. “There was a lady from Louisiana who was helping with the storm damage in Indiana, and she actually found Flor near some roads, and so she was obviously scared she was going to get hit,” shelter volunteer Gillian Primavera said.
Workers at the Evanston Animal Shelter soon traced Flor’s microchip and managed to track down Antonino. The reunion that followed was overwhelming for the owner, who had carried the loss for more than a decade.
“I broke down completely. She was back with me. A piece of my heart was back with me,” Antonino said of the tearful moment.
In the viral moment that spread across social media, footage showed Antonino beaming as she embraced the long-lost, now-graying pet after all these years. The dog that had once been her companion through homelessness was finally back in her arms.
“I just bawled,” Antonino said of her tears of happiness.
Flor’s survival on the streets for 12 years remains a mystery, though the microchip proved decisive in closing the distance between the separated pair.
PAGES: