It was a cold, wet January day in Malvern, Pennsylvania, when Karen looked out into her yard and saw a white dog “curled up in a ball” in her flower bed. The dog was “wet, dirty and shaking” and obviously in need of some love and kindness.
Concerned for her unexpected visitor, Karen brought out a blue blanket for the dog to lie on and put out a hearty bowl of warm chicken soup. The dog was grateful for the food and drank up the soup and left shortly after. She then called Buddha Dog Rescue & Recovery for their help.
Rescuer Nicole Asher answered Karen’s call and “instructed her to leave more food out in the hopes that she [the dog] would return.” And the dog did. “Not only did she come back but she slept in the warmth of the blanket for most of the day,” Asher posted on the Buddha Dog Rescue & Recovery Facebook page.
Asher and her team came by later that day and set up a kennel trap, hoping the dog would take the bait. “At 9:50 tonight she finally got up from a long rest and made her way right to my trap,” Asher said in the Facebook post.
“Within moments she was in and finally safe,” she added.
They took a look at the dog and saw that she had an ID tag. “Once captured, we were beyond thrilled to find a tag on her collar with her name, ELLA and the contact info for her rescue.”
Yes, it turns out Ella had been rescued before and they learned from her tag she belonged to MatchDog Rescue. Ella had been missing for two weeks after she escaped her foster home, and had “travelled over twelve miles from where she went missing.”
They contacted MatchDog Rescue who were thrilled. “I immediately contacted the number and after they got over the initial shock, there were lots of happy tears and cries of joy,” said Asher.
MatchDog Rescue’s president came out to get her, according to the Dodo and took Ella home to rest and decompress. Asher said, “She settled right in and has become a big couch potato.”
Asher couldn’t help but declare, “What a happy ending!” but Ella’s happy ending wasn’t quite done.
When Ella returned to MatchDog Rescue, they shared more of Ella’s backstory on their Facebook page and the rescue dog has had quite a life! She was a street dog in Mexico and survived off of the kindness of locals and factory workers where she hung out. When they noticed she was pregnant they told a rescuer in the town where she lived.
This rescuer is in regular contact with MatchDog and that’s how they helped arrange for Ella to be transported to the vets after she gave birth. She was looked after there until her puppies were ready to be adopted. “We had Ella safely under our wing, being taken care of for 5 months,” they wrote. “She had all the food, care and love we could provide. Both Ella and all of Ella’s babies were saved, vetted and cared for under MatchDog Rescue.”
Ella then came to the United States to find a forever family but then she went missing. MatchDog revealed that Ella has a “kind gentle spirit which we have come to know and love about her.”
Thankfully, she was found and recovered from her frightening ordeal and Ella was put up for adoption at the end of January.
Then on February 8, a few weeks after her return to her temporary home, she has found her happy ending again and this time it’s a lasting one! Ella has been adopted.