Maruko's happy ending

Maruko,last week at HEART  6 months on

This lucky lady certainly has a guardian angel or two shining down on her. In brief, she was trapped under rubble left in the wake of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. She was stuck for 11 days. When she got out she was surrendered to the city pound and was due to be gassed the day we met her. Along with a local vet, a local couple and our three Japanese speaking volunteers, we argued, beseeched and plagued the city hall officials to show mercy in her case. Begrudgingly they did. Maruko spent time in the Niigata shelter and the Heart Tokushima shelter where The video I made of her and her story was posted on their blog. Her owners found the site and got in touch.Today she was flown up to Sendai where her owners met her for the first time in 6 months. Local TV were there to report it.

Long version: (because you know I don't do short very well;-))
SO for the background of all the original shenanigans at the city hall you can read these blog entries.
http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-human-one-fourleggeder-two-heroes.html

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/04/we-had-been-told-she-was-large-dog-but.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAdW_2sfZxkThe walls of bureaucracy that we kept coming up against had no right to be there given later information. Maruko should never have been in such a precarious situation.

It turns out that Maruko's owners had indeed handed her over to city hall on account of having nowhere to keep her after she was retrieved. She was handed over to be taken care of. Yes, you read right, TAKEN CARE of. They never signed any paperwork to relinquish their dog as is the case when someone does not want their pet any more. They believed Maruko was going to be held so they could sort things out and then they could come and get her. They returned to get her and the city hall would not divulge any information as to Maruko's whereabouts. The only thing they were told was that Maruko was still alive. The college age daughter pursued as many avenues as she possibly could to find their dog and find her she did. HEART has a blog and they wrote up Maruko's story and added the video I made. About 6 weeks ago Heart got a phone call from Sendai that ended in tears.The Maruko in HEART's care was indeed the Maruko they had been looking for. Since then all the angel's in charge of fourleggeders have been setting things in motion for her to be back where she belongs. Today was the culmination of those efforts and Miss Maruko has gone home.... FINALLY ;-)

Maruko at Sendai this morning