A beagle named Blue, who got lost in a New York City subway station, has been reunited with his family thanks to an MTA employee who spotted the terrified dog.
James Dineen, who works as a painter for the MTA, tells PEOPLE he was near the end of the southbound D train platform at Bay 50th Street Station in Brooklyn when the dog came running toward him.
At first he thought the beagle belonged to two women sitting on a nearby bench. But he bent down and started playing with the dog when he noticed that the animal, which was wearing a harness but no leash, was “shaking, crying and freezing”.
When he told the women that the dog should have been on a leash, they explained that they were not the owners. Then he went into action.
“I knew I had to do something,” Dineen says. “I can’t leave the dog there.”
So he took him to meet his co-workers, and the beagle made many new friends.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
“There are 40 guys in my shop, and this dog fell in love with all of them,” he says. “I mean, he was running around like a newborn puppy, playing with everyone, getting between their feet and just rolling on his belly. He was so happy. I guess he just knew he was in the company of people he could trust.”
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“This dog was so sweet,” he adds. “He was hungry, thirsty. He simply ate everything in front of him. I don’t know how long he was out.”
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Metropolitan Transportation Authority
He and his associates took the beagle to the police to check for a microchip. Although they found the chip number, no registered owner came forward.
One of Dineen’s colleagues, Tommy Sommo, took Blue home for the night, but Sommo was already busy with two other dogs, including a recently adopted dog.
They made a post on the “lost pets of Brooklyn” Facebook page and took turns caring for the beagle for the next few days.
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After Dineen’s friend Shawn Fallon took the dog home, they were called by Blue’s owners who saw the post on social media.
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Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The dog was taken to another vet for a chip scan and this time it matched the owners. Blue’s family members were “very happy” to pick up their lost companion. That’s when MTA employees learned about Blue’s name.
“It was touching,” says Dineen. “My dog just died a year ago. It’s the same size dog. … If one of us loses an animal, we want it back. You can’t sleep. You just messed up.”
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“It was a nice feeling that, you know what, everything we did paid off,” he adds. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out right. And this one, this was a good story.”
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Source: HIS Education