Lost Layla Reunited With Vernon Family

It's been numerous occasions that we've posted the photo of a lost or found dog and asked you to share it, but this was the first time that we actually found the dog ourselves.

We found this girl in the middle of M-71 just outside of Vernon on Friday evening. We pulled over, called her to the side of the road; she hopped right in the car. We drove through the village, stopping any random person walking down the street to ask if they recognized her. Among them was a gentleman that works for the village, who was sure he knew just about every "critter" around. Unfortunately even he wasn't able to help. We even ran across Officer Pete, Vernon's Policeman, who passed along the dog's description to central dispatch -- just in case a call was received.

Then, we did what has worked so well in the past -- we posted her photo and asked you to share it. We brought her back to the house, put a collar on her, gave her some water and waited.

After about an hour, we decided to head back to Vernon. We made another couple passes through town before the light of day was nearly completely faded. We set course back to Durand.

We gave her a bath, introduced her to our dogs and let her get acquainted with her surroundings. We were pleasantly surprised to see our Plot Hound and Beagle get along so swimmingly with her.

The kids started saying things like "What should we name her?" Nerves were on edge. I said "she's just a guest," somewhat convincingly, I'd hoped.

Then, a message on Facebook from Angelique. "That's our dog. We've been looking for her. Her name is Layla."

There was no question, this was definitely Layla. She knows her name well and got so excited when she heard us say it.

The entire ordeal, which I'm sure seemed much longer to Layla's owners than to us, ended up lasting less than three hours, thanks, in part, to more than 200 shares on Facebook.

The ironic part about the whole thing is that we saw Layla's owner on several occasions while we were searching, but, despite the advice of my wife, I didn't stop to ask him because "he doesn't look like he's looking for a dog."

Layla is pictured above, post-bath, getting comfy in my chair -- the chair in which I'm sitting as I type this article.