Family Reunited With Beloved Dog After 7 Years, Then They Get Tragic News

A Texan woman and her younger brother enjoyed an emotional reunion with the beloved family dog they thought they would never see again.

Shiloh came back into Alden Cuevas and her brother Jackson’s lives seven years on from the day their stepfather upped and left, taking their childhood pet with him. But the joy of this unexpected reunion would soon take a tragic turn.

In truth, Cuevas had long given up hope of ever seeing Shiloh again. “She was our childhood dog growing up,” she told Newsweek. “Then, one day, my stepdad left, and we never saw either of them again.

“There was no warning really,” Cuevas said. “One day, they just never came back, and we never knew where they ended up. We had assumed she’d passed away years ago.”

That was how things stayed until last May, when Cuevas came across her stepfather’s mug shot on social media. After a little more digging online, she eventually came across an advert calling for help in rehoming 15 dogs: Shiloh was one of them.

Reading on, Cuevas discovered more about the distressing situation Shiloh had been left in and knew she had to take action.

“She had been abandoned in a warehouse for six days with no food or water,” Cuevas said. Shiloh had spent much of the previous six years living outside. She was riddled with sores, fleas and ticks while her teeth were rotten.

“We immediately drove seven hours to bring her home,” Cuevas said.

Their reunion, though tinged with sadness due to the circumstances, was an emotional one. The minute she heard Cuevas’ voice, Shiloh began to howl. “She recognized me instantly once she smelled me,” Cuevas said.

It was a similar story for Jackson, who had been especially close to Shiloh growing up. “My brother was very emotional,” Cuevas said. “She looks so different from when we last saw her. She’s a skeleton version of herself with the same spirit.”

Shiloh wasn’t able to walk all that well, due to spinal arthritis and had to wear special boots on her worn-out paws but, underneath it all, she was still the same dog Cuevas had grown up with.

“She has the happiest personality and seems overall quite grateful to be with us,” Cuevas said. “I feel like she knows she’s home and she held out hope her family would come save her.”

Shiloh is certainly more than capable of remembering her old family. Research published in the journal Current Biology in 2016 concluded that dogs are capable of recalling past events and linking them to their current actions or feelings.

This is called “episodic memory” and suggests dogs can recall past experiences from their life that might not have been all that meaningful at the time. Researchers reached this conclusion after 17 dogs were trained to copy the actions of a human. The animals were then required to recall the test at an unexpected time, to ascertain whether their memories were episodic. The dogs tested performed the actions successfully in 33 out of 35 attempts.

Now 12, the hope was that Shiloh could enjoy her retirement years back in the loving care of the people she once called family. Sadly, though, that happiness is likely to be short-lived.

“When we rescued her, we immediately noticed she was breathing quite heavily,” Cuevas said. “We suspected heartworms since we were told she was living outside, but when we did a full-body X-ray, we found cancer throughout her entire body.”

Cuevas said the family has been told they would be incredibly lucky to see Shiloh live even six more months. They don’t know how long their beloved senior dog has left, but they are trying everything they can to prolong her happiness for as long as possible.

That means steroids, pain medication, laser therapy and an all-raw diet. Cuevas, her brother and the rest of the family are heartbroken but determined to give Shiloh the happy ending she deserves.

“I’m really sad I didn’t know sooner that she was alive. I’d do anything to not be spending our days with her on hospice care,” Cuevas said. “But, at the end of the day, I’d rather have one day in hospice care than none at all and her dying alone outside. She will pass away in our arms surrounded by people who love her and missed her.”