Gael is home. The yellow Labrador who bolted from a Miami Gardens patrol car and disappeared into the neighborhood has been found and is safe, according to the Miami Gardens Police Department.
His escape started with an ordinary call. Officer K. Stanley was responding to a business alarm on a Monday night, and when she opened the rear door of her patrol vehicle around 9:35 p.m., Gael ran east across Northwest Second Avenue. Surveillance footage caught him racing through a tire shop lot. A second recording, which police did not release, showed him being struck by a car. He kept running anyway.
The search went wide after that: drones overhead, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office aviation unit, officers going door to door with flyers, residents reviewing their own cameras. Gael, about two and a half years old and 55 to 65 pounds, is microchipped. The department thanked people for sharing posts, calling in tips, and keeping watch, and said “Gael is back where he belongs.”
What this means for your dog
Gael got home because a lot of people knew his face. If your dog slipped a collar tomorrow, what would a stranger have to work with? Check that your microchip registration still lists a number you actually answer, and put a tag with a current number on the collar your dog wears every day.
Two things worth filing away. Chasing a loose dog usually pushes him further away, since a scared dog reads a running human as a reason to keep going, and sitting down or opening a car door and waiting works better. Also, any dog hit by a vehicle needs a vet exam even if he trots over wagging, because adrenaline covers a lot. We followed the first half of this story in Gael’s disappearance.