It was just an average day in 2009 for a woman named Sophia Hanson. She let her two big dogs, Blake and Laila, outside into the yard. When she came back a little bit later to check on the pair, they were both nowhere to be found. Sophia wasn’t sure if they were stolen or they ran away, but they were just gone. She and her husband spent the next year searching for their beloved dogs, hoping someone had found them. That’s when they came across a suspicious Craigslist ad from someone near their neighborhood in San Antonio, Texas. It was a dog they were selling for $500 and it looked just like their dog Blake. They confirmed it was him when they arrived and he was in the backyard of a home on a very large, heavy chain.
Once he got home, Blake was traumatized from the experience, but with some time and work, he has recovered. But they still didn’t know what happened to Laila and they spent years trying to find her. But luckily for Laila, a woman named Janice Rackley was going to save her. She first spotted the dog in 2018 alone in a field and very skinny. She had clearly been on her own for a while, and Janice wanted to save her. Janice went to the field every day for months giving Laila food and water and gaining her trust. After nearly 7 months, she finally got close enough to get a leash around her neck and into her care. Once she was safe, Laila’s personality shone through: it was clear someone had loved her very much.
So, they scanned her for a microchip and it came back to Sophia. It had been eight years, but when Laila and Sophia were finally reunited it was like no time had passed: they were finally reunited and Laila was home again—with her brother, too.
