This summer, we read an announcement about two elderly Labrador sisters who had been abandoned by their owners. Our intuition told us right away: they are ours. We could hardly wait for the morning to go and pick them up.

And oh, how much joy they brought! The girls, the grandmas, and Christian took turns walking them, treating them, taking them to the vet, and later raising funds for expensive specialized food. They became the very soul of our shelter. They didn't bother the ducks or chickens and cuddled with every single resident without exception—they brightened our every day. It was actually because of them that we rushed to get the terrace glazed!

Then, in the autumn, Mr. Dmytro arrived with a small, barky dog named Bax. Like all mutts, he turned out to be incredibly smart, musical, and very freedom-loving. He was the one who taught Angie and Schena to escape from our cozy yard to the neighboring auto shop. It added to our troubles, but no one was particularly worried—where could they possibly go? Honestly, they needed mobility walkers more than territorial restrictions!

But things didn’t go as planned.

One evening, Angie was nowhere to be found. Not in our yard, not at the auto shop, not anywhere around. Everyone joined the search: the girls, the nurses, the mechanics from the auto shop. Our work chat was blowing up with messages. We wrote to newspapers, search services, animal shelters, and put up flyers. Lara, our administrator, cried for her like she would for a small child. Later, Bax—the instigator and troublemaker—was found. People who saw him running along the highway brought him back. But there was no sign of Angie… It was terrifying to imagine her, old and confused, wandering in the freezing darkness. A whole day passed like this.

And then, a text from Lara popped up: "Olyaaaaaaaaaa! She’s been found!"

In a residential area, inside one of the high-rise building entrances, the poor thing was nudging her nose against every apartment door. Some awful person had cut off her collar with the QR code, but a girl recognized her simply from our photos!

We are so incredibly grateful to her, and to everyone who shared our posts and physically combed the woods around the shelter for a full day. So here is the thing: there are many of us, and we are unstoppable! During those 24 hours, we united even more and truly felt like "Big Family."