Gone 2 years, dog found in Albuquerque heads home
Huxley, chubbier but still a snuggler, returns to family now in Nevada
Huxley the dog got fat while on the run.
The friendly little dog who escaped from his Southern California backyard two years ago showed up in Albuquerque this week — almost 800 miles from his home.
How Huxley, now about 3, made it to Albuquerque is a mystery, but his original owners Justine Mendez and Michael Martin, who now live in Nevada, are excited to welcome him back to the family.
The papillon and collie mix boarded a plane Friday morning in Albuquerque and headed for Reno on a $250 ticket paid for by people who contributed to a GoFundMe account Mendez set up shortly after getting the surprising call from the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department.
“They said, ‘We have your dog Huxley,’ and then they said he was in New Mexico, and I said you’ve got to be kidding me,” Mendez said from her home near Reno. “With Huxley’s character of course, he would end up being the dog 1,000 miles away.”
He was always the dog to snuggle under the covers and
hop onto a lap, Mendez said.
And he is still that same dog — just a little fatter.
As staff at the Eastside Animal Shelter prepared Huxley for his flight on Delta Air Lines, where he was to ride in a crate in the cargo hold, the white dog with sleek brown and black spots insisted on sitting on laps and leaning against passers-by.
Mendez, who was sent pictures of Huxley being interviewed for a television news story, said, “He was never that chubby.”
Shelter staff say that he was definitely in someone’s care and suspect that whoever found him wandering around the Riverside, Calif., neighborhood brought him to Albuquerque but never had him scanned for a microchip.
If they had, Mendez and Martin’s phone number would have appeared as it did when Huxley was dropped off at the shelter Sunday by a person who found him in a neighborhood near the Petroglyph National Monument. He was not wearing a collar with a tag.
Paul Caster, director of the city’s Animal Welfare Department, said — with Huxley on his lap — that microchips are critical to reuniting lost pets with owners, but many owners don’t know how to get a microchip or how to keep it updated with phone numbers when they change.
A phone call to the microchip company — which can be found by having a free scan of your pet’s chip at the shelter, a vet or a large pet store — can quickly update information.
Without updated ownership info, situations like Huxley’s can turn ugly.
If Huxley’s Albuquerque family had tried to come and claim him, they couldn’t have taken him home because they aren’t the owners listed on Huxley’s chip.
Joel Craig, operations manager for Animal Welfare, said he has had to read through divorce decrees and legal documents to determine who actually owns a dog.
Last week, 192 dogs were brought to shelters in the city and county. About 35 percent of them were reclaimed by owners.
When Huxley arrives home, he will be greeted by a new dog brother, a 110-pound Great Pyrenees mix. And he will return to his human siblings, Ryan and Mariah Martin.
Mendez said Ryan, now 6, remembers Huxley.
“He tells me, ‘That’s my favorite dog in California,’ ” she said.