Dog Travels 40 Miles To Be With Foster Mom After Escaping New Owners

Fostering is a time of building relationships with people and animals, and that couldn’t be more true for Seneca Krueger, a psychotherapist who fostered 30 in 12 years.

In the process, she grew very attached to dogs named, Zelda, and Krueger and was able to provide much-needed healing to Zelda with the help of two of her dogs.

“She came with anti-anxiety medications,” Krueger said, “Zelda paced. All-day long, she was either pacing or hiding.”

“When I was home, she was attached to me. Over the course of two weeks of tether training, I had also weaned her off of her anti-anxiety medications, and the pacing had decreased. She was even willing to come out of hiding on her own for brief periods of time.”

After two months, Zelda wagged, after two more months, Zelda barked and played and n seeing the pup’s progress, Kruger knew it was time for the next phase in her life.

“As Zelda began to gain a little more confidence, I decided it was time for her to find her forever home,” Krueger said. “This is what you are supposed to do as a dog foster — help them adjust and then happily say goodbye as they go and live their best lives.”

But it was devastating for Krueger as she drove Zelda to her new home outside Minneapolis.

“I had to pull over to the side of the road because I couldn’t see through my tears,” she said. “For the first time in my 12 years of dog fostering, I felt like I had given away my dog.”

But soon Krueger was told that Zelda had slipped her lead and was on the run and was spotted here and there, but no one could catch her.

“My sweet Zelda is still missing!” Kruger posted on March 20. “It’s been over a month now, and no new sightings of her in three weeks. Zelda went missing from Chanhassen, and was last seen on lake Minnetonka, exiting near Orono and Minnetonka beach.”

“Zelda is very afraid of humans and should not be approached. Please share if you know people in this area. I am offering a $100 reward for any sighting that leads to her return.”

Tracking groups set up trail cameras and people kept their eyes open for Zelda, Krueger too spent time looking for the dog especially since the temperatures were running below zero.

Two months later, Zelda was spotted in Minneapolis, halfway between her new owners’s home and Krueger’s home.

The adoptive owners gave up the ownership of the dog and this made Krueger doubled her efforts to find Zelda.

“She was mine again,” Krueger said, “and I was more determined than ever to find her.”

The dog kept inching closer to Krueger, and a couple near Krueger managed to trap a dog they thought looked like Zelda, three months after she’d had gone missing.

“Although I really wanted this dog to be my Zelda, I knew that if there was a lost, scared dog out there on the streets, we had to help it,” Krueger said, “Even if it wasn’t the dog that I knew and loved, and missed so much.”

The dog that was trapped looked similar, but was unrecognizable as Zelda, a microchip scan however confirmed that the pup was indeed Zelda, and Krueger broke down.

“It was a miracle, and what else do you do in the face of a miracle? I sobbed,” she said. “I apologized to Zelda for not recognizing her. I touched her for the first time in 97 days. I assured her that she was going home forever and that I never stopped looking for her.”

“Zelda is officially my dog. But let’s be honest, it’s not like I had a choice. She is very persistent.”

A video showing how happy Zelda was after returning home to Krueger is going viral and even though Krueger later chose to keep Zelda, it was clear that Zelda had already taken that decision a long time ago.