Dog lost near Midway Airport found safe
Source: Chicago Tribune
A dog rescued in Texas but lost at Midway Airport after slipping from her harness has been found safe and is on her way to a new home in Wisconsin.
"We are just so happy," said Lauren Kelliher, vice president of Illinois Doberman Rescue Plus, which helped coordinate the dog's travel to Elkhorn, Wis.
A woman found Madison in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side Tuesday night, then spotted a flier about the missing Doberman when she went to the grocery store this morning, Kelliher said. The woman left a message in Spanish around 10:30 a.m., Kelliher said.
Kelliher and other volunteers started scrambling to find someone to translate the message, but the woman soon called back. She told them, in English, that she had found Madison in her neighborhood near 38th and Spaulding, cold and hungry, and coaxed the dog into her garage.
Madison was inside the woman's house, wrapped in blankets, as a volunteer went to pick her up and the woman who originally planned to take her to Wisconsin prepared to begin their delayed journey to Wisconsin. The dog bore a distinctive scar that matched Madison's, according to Larissa Gavin, a volunteer who rescued Madison.
Gavin said she had been driving around a neighborhood in Houston on Jan. 5 with the founder of a rescue group, stopping to offer food to dogs and talking to people about bringing their dogs in during the cold weather, when they happened upon three unleashed puppies.
The two found the puppies' mother, Madison, nearby, and three days later were able to take custody of the dogs and take them to to a veterinarian for examination. One of the puppies had a broken femur, and Madison showed signs of having been injured, Gavin said.
After they sent out word about the dogs, a home was found for Madison in Wisconsin, while her puppies were placed with a puppy rescue shelter in Houston, Gavin said.
Madison arrived at Midway Friday and was picked up by a Chicago paramedic who volunteers for a Doberman rescue group and was going to drive the dog to Wisconsin, Gavin said. Madison somehow slipped out of her harness near 53rd Street and Central Avenue, Gavin said.
Volunteers then combed the area, with the last sighting of Madison Saturday night near 38th Street and Spaulding Avenue, as "a bunch of volunteers descended on the area," Kelliher said. But "we hadn't heard anything since."