Texas Dog Lost In Hurricane Harvey Comes Home 3½ Years Later

SUGAR LAND, TX — As difficult as it was to accept, Rachel Koster finally did: Maddie, the Koster family’s Schnauzer mix who slipped out the door in August 2017 a few days before Hurricane Harvey brought epic flooding to Houston and the Gulf Coast, wasn’t coming home.

Thousands of pets either drowned or were lost in Hurricane Harvey, which unleashed an unfathomable amount of rain — trillions of gallons of water, more than 60 inches in some areas — over five days.

As the massive storm was setting up, the Koster family had just moved out of their home in one Houston suburb, The Woodlands, and were moving into a new one in another suburb, New Caney. Maddie, 13 at the time, slipped out the door of the new house, Koster told news station KPRC.

Koster and the friend who was helping her unpack immediately started looking for Maddie. They continued to search. They didn't find her.

Then it started raining. Floodwaters swamped Houston and its suburbs, turning life to misery for people and animals. Many dogs, cats and other pets were left to fend for themselves in the quickly rising floodwaters and life-or-death situation.

When it was safe to do so, Koster resumed her search for the beloved dog lost in the hurricane.

“After you search for so long,” Koster told KPRC, “you just assume the worst.”

As months turned into years, the Koster family never completely abandoned hope their dog would return. But they didn’t cling to it, either. They never replaced her. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

Last week, Koster’s mother called with remarkable news: Maddie had been seen.

After so long, they were skeptical, worried that someone might be yanking the strings of hearts still aching for a dog Koster described as “loving and kind and obedient.”

On Friday, Gayle Tebon, a volunteer for The Forgotten Pets Advocates, scooped up a 16-year-old pooch roaming the busy streets of Sugar Land, about 50 miles south of both New Caney and The Woodlands.

A trip to the veterinarian showed the dog was microchipped, but the contact information listed the family’s old address in The Woodlands.

Tebon wasn’t ready to give up on the senior dog, figuring that someone was missing her. She cast a wide net on social media and the internet with various organizations that help reunite families with their lost pets. Among those she reached out to was lost-pet sleuth Marilyn Litt.

Her Lost Dogs of Texas group’s motto is “never give up” — something anguished pet owners are often forced to do because they lack the money for flyers, signs and advertising or can’t take time away from work to conduct a thorough search.

Lost Dogs of Texas has agreements with microchip companies that provide access to information that is ordinarily kept confidential, Litt told KPRC.

Sunday, two days after she was picked up in Sugar Land, Maddie was reunited with the Kosters.

Koster told KPRC that Maddie still has the same sunny personality, and Koster is thankful to the volunteers who helped bring the dog home after more than three years.

Patch has reached out to Rachel Koster to talk about the reunion with Maddie, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.