After a wave of social media posts and weeks of uncertainty, a Buckhead woman, whose dog was wrongly adopted and then blocked from reuniting with her, says her nightmare has been transformed into a miracle.
“I’m amazed and blown away by all of the support and the helpful tips from all over the country,” Brittany Ray said Sunday in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If there’s a bright side, it’s that I hope this will inspire people to never stop fighting.”
Ray's mild-mannered terrier mix, Loki, is back. Ray and her roommate Kristin Orenga inspired a social media movement with a Jan. 31 open letter on Facebook, asking for Loki's return after the dog went missing, arrived to the Fulton County Animal Shelter and within days was adopted by a new family.
Ray and shelter officials have differing reports on whether she was contacted before the dog was placed for adoption on Dec. 21.
The new adoptive family had refused to bring Loki back, but Ray said her last effort to reunite with her dog was to place an open records request for the new owners’ contact information. A Facebook commenter suggested the idea as a way for Ray to personally request that the family return Loki.
Since the shelter is a publicly-funded entity, shelter officials had to oblige.
Rather than have their information released, the family opted to bring Loki back to the shelter, Ray said.
“They’ve seen everything on social media. They’ve seen everything on the news. I don’t blame them,” Ray said. “I never wanted to hurt them. I just thought I could personally let them know I wanted him back.”
The family returned Loki on Friday after learning of the open records request, according to Karen Hirsch, spokeswoman for Lifeline Animal Project, which manages the Fulton animal shelter. Hirsch said the family had grown attached to Loki, since they adopted him in late December.
“Anybody who has a pet that they’ve fallen in love with for a few months, it’s going to be hard to relinquish that animal,” Hirsch said. “This story illustrates that people should microchip their pets.”
Ray said she has no regrets, and she appreciates the Fulton shelter making Loki’s return possible.
Orenga, whose dog Motley is Loki’s brother, said the end to the tumultuous, month-long ordeal is what she always expected.
“It is surreal that I just posted something on Facebook and this led to people online helping to take these steps,” she said. “The fact that we got him back, it shows we really did everything that we could.”
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