‘A Christmas miracle’: Family reunited with lost dog after it was missing for a month

By Kelly Sasso

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    PITTSBURGH (WTAE) — It’s a reunion a local family can only call a Christmas miracle.

After being missing for a month, their dog, Maggie, is back home. Maggie vanished after a fire in their neighborhood and was presumed dead. That was until they saw a photo posted at a local dog kennel.

It was back on Nov. 19 that a large fire erupted on Grandview Avenue in North Braddock, spreading to four homes and a storage garage.

“I was scared because all those wires were burned, popping in and it was it was just fire all around me,” Eric Douglas said.

Douglas lives in a home across the street and ran into one of the burning homes to help his neighbor.

His work truck, which was parked in the garage that burned, was a total loss.

But he lost something ‘else’ special to him that night, his 8-month-old puppy Maggie, who ran outside the night of the fire.

”I tried to get her, but she ran in the building,” Eric said. “’Cause the fire was on this side, and she ran in the building behind, so we couldn’t find her after that. It was too late. It went up too fast.”

Douglas, along with Kelly Mynahan and her granddaughter, spent every day this past month searching for Maggie, assuming the worst as the days went on.

“It’s just been up and down like an emotional roller coaster because people would say that they saw her, and we would have hope she was still alive,” Kelly said. “And then we weren’t sure if she died in a fire. We were looking around the rubble for any sign of her. It’s just been up and down for a month.”

But their story ends on a high note.

Over the weekend, Sable Kennel in nearby McKeesport posted photos of the dogs at their shelter with Santa, hoping to attract families to adopt.

The photo made its way back to Kelly, whose heart skipped a beat when she saw it.

“It’s truly a Christmas miracle,” Kelly said. “We’re really excited.”

Kelly and her family went to the shelter to confirm in person that this was, in fact, their Maggie.

And it was.

“I didn’t know that it was the fire dog until they called late last night and left a message for me saying that she was a dog from North Braddock,” Dawn Weichler with Animal Control at Sable Kennel said.

Weichler took Maggie in Friday evening — after she was found on the street in Duquesne.

She was shocked and very happy when Kelly called.

“It’s Christmas. She needed to be home with her family,” Weichler said. “It’s been a long month. So she needed to get home for Christmas.”

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