A holiday miracle has happened as an "extremely cold, skinny and scared" chihuahua was reunited with her owner after three years.
Mary Kleiner, who picked up Delilah the chihuahua from BC SPCA Richmond yesterday, said she was in "disbelief" when a community member told her Delilah might've been found.
"I was just like, 'Oh, God. It's been so many years. Like, seriously, someone's gonna do this to me now?'"
But when Kleiner and her family saw the pictures on BC SPCA Richmond's Facebook, they knew the spotted chihuahua who looked like a mix of a cat, a dog and a cow had to be Delilah.
"And she lost her teeth when she was like 10 years old, and so her tongue sticks out," Kleiner added.
An employee at Trail Appliances on Sweden Way in Richmond had found Delilah in a cardboard box, according to BC SPCA Richmond's spokesperson Emma Michel.
"She just happened to look out (the shop window) at the right time," said Michel.
"She saw something moving out of a cardboard box. She thought it was like a rabbit and it looked like it was struggling."
Upon closer inspection, the employee realized it was a chihuahua and quickly reported it to BC SPCA's Richmond branch.
Michel said staff at BC SPCA were "almost all brought to tears" by the chihuahua's condition.
"She was very old. It was freezing, she was super skinny," she explained.
The chihuahua was rushed to the vet and staff put a post on Facebook to try to find more information about her.
The Facebook post, which described the chihuahua as "cold, skinny and scared" was shared more than 120 times in the past few days, and it was updated to let community members know that, while she will be "needing a lot of care," she was safe.
Word soon spread to Kleiner, who immediately provided photos of Delilah that matched the found chihuahua's distinctive features. Staff also found an email from Kleiner back in 2020, when she reported that Delilah was missing.
Delilah, who had been with Kleiner and her family since she was a two-month-old puppy in 2008, liked to "hang out" in the front yard and would always return home.
"And one day (in 2020), she just didn't come back," Kleiern recalled.
Despite the family's efforts to find Delilah, including putting up posters around the neighbourhood and contacting the media, they never managed to find her. They had feared the worse, such as the possibility of Delilah getting hit by a car or being eaten by a coyote, but they hoped that she was just taken in by a family who "needed her more."
In a touching video of the reunion, Kleiern could be seen placing Delilah gently into a blanket before taking Delilah into her arms.
Delilah had come from a big family of seven, and some of Kleiner's kids had never met Delilah before.
As Delilah appears to have trouble seeing and she's still adjusting to being back at home, the Kleiner family is taking it "hour by hour" as they care for her.
"We don't know how long we have with her," said Kleiner.
And now that Delilah is home again, Kleiner is hoping to find out more about Delilah's lost years.
"I'm not upset. I just would like more information. If she was in good care and loved (in) those many years, that's fantastic. That's all we can ask for," she said.
