Lost Dog, Paquita, Found After 'Rollercoaster' Search

Southampton NY

14 July, 2021

9:25 PM

Description

SOUTHAMPTON, NY — A lost dog in Southampton is home safely due to the help of a caring community. Paquita, a senior dog, first went missing Saturday from Greenfield and Arbutus Roads in Southampton — but on Wednesday, she was found. "We are finally relieved," Paquita's owner Maria Belen Avellaneda-Kantt said, adding that the community stepped up to help in a big way. "We met people who volunteered immediately. Teddy Henn of Missing Angels Long Island, Tracy from the Southampton Animal Shelter, amazing neighbors like Kris and Leslie. Apparently, she was picked up in the highway on Sunday by a family from Bellport. We are are happy and forever grateful. Paquita is happy but still exhausted," she said. "Though we got, through leads, many pieces of the puzzle — we will never know her whole story." Avellaneda-Kantt first described her family's anguished search on a Patch Neighbor Post. Speaking with Patch while Paquita was missing, Avellaneda-Kantt said: "This has been an emotional rollercoaster. We have a fence and a gate, and it looks like she slipped below both." Her family, she said, has had Paquita, a small, white Maltese, for 12 years. "She is very friendly. She came with her life companion, Dante, a Yorkie who, despite his age, has been desperately trying to track her." Avellaneda-Kantt and her husband met in high school and have been together for 25 years. Before they were married, she got Paquita and Dante. "I have been a dog lover my whole life," she said. While Paquita was missing, the couple's two daughters, 6 and 3, were asking for the pup every time they returned home. "It was heartbreaking," she said. Thinking that Paquita was lost between the New York State Route 27, the woods, and the train tracks, Avellaneda-Kantt and her family were frantic and implored the community for help. "She is loved, missed — she is simply not used to dealing with danger. She doesn't know the area where she is now so she may have no clue about getting home," she told Patch before Paquita was found. After the happy reunion, Avellaneda-Kantt said, "We are absolutely grateful to everyone who helped. "