Service Dog Taken 1,700 Miles Away Returns Home After 3 Years

The Staffordshire Terrier Ladybird has had a terrible existence. She was bred to be a support dog for a woman with narcolepsy and seizures. Ladybird was by her side, pushing her wheelchair, when the woman’s health concerns caused her to become homeless on the streets of Austin, TX. Ladybird’s owner enlisted the help of her friends Sharon Henderson and “Miss Jane” to look after her after she died.
Unfortunately, a fellow homeless man was first to her, grabbing her in the middle of the night and travelling with Ladybird to Portland, Oregon. “The neighbor in the living facility called this other homeless person and he came and got Ladybird in the middle of the night knowing her requests were that he not have her,” Henderson told Fox7 Austin.

That happened three years ago.

Ladybird was found on the streets of Portland a month ago, and her microchip led to a phone call to Henderson and “Miss Jane.” Ladybird had been walking the streets after the man who had kidnapped her had died. She was only 30 pounds and had begun to lose her hearing. Henderson claims that:

“She hadn’t eaten in a long time and didn’t have any jaw muscles.” Her head muscles had weakened to the point where she couldn’t even eat. Her ribs protruded from her body, and she couldn’t even go up two flights of stairs without collapsing backwards.”

Ladybird was too weak to travel, so she was placed with an Oregon foster mother to recover her strength. Henderson promises to give Ladybird the life she deserves now that she has returned to Texas.

“I want her to enjoy the rest of her life in the lap of luxury she’s never known, and have a family.”