Feel-Good Friday: Finley

Finley is our top dog for Feel-Good Friday!  Finley’s story almost seems like the plot of a movie, and it has the required happy ending for all dog movies too!

Finley is a newly acquired service dog in training for Denice DeAntonio. Last week (March 5) Denise and Finley, a golden retriever, were at a shopping center in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, when Denise fell. Ambulances were called and a good deal of people responded, all of which is heartwarming.  Unfortunately, in the commotion that ensued poor Finley got scared and ran off.  How terrifying for Denise and Finley.

The community response was swift and generous.  Dozens of volunteers looked for Finley for several days. They set up organized search parties and used some of the many tips called in to direct their search. 

Finally, on Friday morning, a local woman, Jackie Kauffman, found Finley standing in her gated yard with her dog Kirby!  He took some coaxing, but she was able to lure him with dog food into her garage.  What happy news!

Jackie did some calling around and found that the search team, lead by the group Amazing Tails, was assembling at a local Dunkin Donuts with a search dog to head out again looking for Finley.  Amazing Tails is the group who had trained Finley, and they had been feverishly coordinating the efforts to find him.  Check out their page; they often use rescue dogs for their training programs.  Anyway, Finley was taken to the restaurant and united with Denise!

Click on this picture for a short and heartwarming video about Finley's story.  You'll have to sit through a few seconds of a story about local hikers, but then you get to see Finley reunited with Denise.

So much of this story fits the criteria for Feel-Good Friday.  It also makes me proud of Pennsylvania and the people of Berks County for being so persistent in their efforts to find the dog and help Denise. Previously Wyomissing got a lot of attention for being the epicenter of the mess that was Jon and Kate Plus 8, the “famous” reality show family with sextuplets.  Most of the people I knew down that way could have done without that claim to fame. Now they have something much better to hang their hats on.

You can read more about the search and rescue in the local paper, The Reading Eagle, which is where I got the information shared here.  All of the pictures are from the Amazing Tails website except for the one directly above.

Keep your own personal rescue stories coming, and don't forget you can submit photos for our sleeping pet series too!

Also, don't forget to follow us on social media: 

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rescuedogblog
 Twitter: @RescueDogBlog
Instagram: @rescuedogblog