Abeaglenamed Blue, who was lost in a New York City subway station, has been reunited with his family thanks to an MTA employee who spotted the frightened canine.
James Dineen, who works as a painter for the MTA, tells PEOPLE he was near the end of a southbound D train platform at the Bay 50th Street station in Brooklyn when a dog came running toward him.
When he told the women the dog should’ve been on a leash, they clarified that they weren’t the owners. It was then that he took action.
“I knew I had to do something,” Dineen says. “I can’t leave the dog there.”
So, he took him to meet his co-workers, and the beagle made many new friends.
“There’s 40 guys in my shop, and this dog fell in love with everybody,” he says. “I mean, he was running around like a newborn puppy, playing with everybody, going in between feet and just rolling on his belly. He was just so happy. I guess he just knew he was around people that he could trust.”
“This dog was so lovable,” he adds. “He was starving, thirsty. He just was eating everything in sight. I don’t know how long he was out.”
He and his co-workers took the beagle to the police to check for a microchip. While they found a chip number, no registered owner came up.
One of Dineen’s colleagues, Tommy Sommo, took Blue home for the night, but Sommo was already busy with two other dogs, including a recently adopted pooch.
They created a post on a “lost pets of Brooklyn” Facebook page, and for the next few days, took turns caring for the beagle.
After Dineen’s friend Shawn Fallon had taken the dog home, they got a call from Blue’s owners, who’d seen the social media post.
They took the dog to another veterinarian to have his chip scanned, and this time it matched with the owners. Blue’s family members were “very happy” to pick up their lost companion. That’s when the MTA employees learned of Blue’s name.
“It was touching,” says Dineen. “My dog just died a year ago. It’s the same size dog. … If any of us lost an animal, you want it back. You can’t sleep. You’re just messed up.”
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“It was a nice feeling that, you know what, it paid off, everything that we did,” he adds. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out the right way. And this one, this was a good story.”
source: people.com
