A dog that went missing in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood just before Sunday’s snowstorm was eventually found and brought home early Tuesday morning.
Benji, a one-and-a-half-year-old Bernadoodle, ran out the front door of his Fishtown home around 7 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, and his owners said they couldn’t find him.
The couple – Justin Cerone and Ece Bal – said they drove around the neighborhood for 23 hours spreading the word and looking for their newly adopted puppy.
“Our mentality was ‘we have to find him,’” Bal explained. “Justin was driving and I stopped. We looked under cars, empty lots, construction sites.”
His family said they worked with Philadelphia police, area shelters, their neighbors and local organizations to try to find him, but Benji remained outside during the snowstorm on Sunday.
Then, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, January 27, a Philadelphia drone company helped find the Benji family using thermal drones.
According to Rick Rotondo Philadelphia and search for thermal drone for lost petthe effort to find Benji took a total of two drone pilots, two drones and seven flights.
During the seventh drone flight, the team finally found Benji near railroad tracks in an abandoned lot in Fishtown.
“At that moment we still knew there was a chance he could get away again and so we did our best to remain calm,” Cerone said.
The company said Benji was scared when he saw people coming toward him, so he jumped from a ledge more than 10 feet, hit the sidewalk and ran away as fast as he could.
“Luck was truly on our side. Every part of this journey felt like a miracle,” Bal said.
Eventually, a member of his family was able to capture him and Benji was brought home.
His family took him to the vet who cleared him to go home as his vitals all looked good and he had broken no bones.
Since coming home, Benji’s mother said he has been sleeping, eating and drinking water.
Benji’s family says they plan to buy him a GPS tracker and will install a baby gate at the front door so he can no longer run outside on his own.
“We’re just going to try to keep things safe and healthy for him,” Bal said.
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