Dog escapes Texas backyard, found 1,000 miles away in Ohio

HAMILTON, Ohio — A small dog that escaped its fenced-in yard in Texas was found outside a southwest Ohio animal shelter, and its owners have no idea how he traveled more than 1,000 miles in a few days.

The 3-year-old Chihuahua-Dachshund mix named Corbin dug a hole under a fence in his backyard in Killeen, Texas, on March 25. He was found Saturday tied to a bench outside the animal shelter in Hamilton, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati.

“It sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true stories,” Corbin’s owner, Mike Saiz, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “This isn’t the first time he dug a hole under the fence. One time he was waiting for us on our front porch and the other two times we had to pick him up from the local pound.”

A surveillance camera at the Animal Friends Humane Society in Hamilton recorded a woman leaving Corbin at the shelter late Friday night. Staff found him the next day.

Corbin was in good shape, just soaking wet from rain and a little scared, said Kurt Merbs, supervisor of Butler County’s dog warden’s division. Authorities are hoping to identify the woman and see if they can get answers about how Corbin ended up in Ohio and at the shelter, Merbs said Wednesday.

The staff located Saiz after finding a microchip on him that contained his owners’ information.

“They called my wife and she told me that they found our dog, but she didn’t sound happy about it,” Saiz said. “I asked if he was OK and she told me he was fine. I then asked where the shelter was and she said, ‘Hamilton — not Hamilton, Texas, but Hamilton, Ohio.’”