It came across Facebook at 11:45 a.m. Friday: A desperate plea for help from a mom searching for her son’s lost service dog. Jamie Poteat of White County posted the notice on social media hoping someone, somewhere would see it and find Bella and Duke, the full-bred Boxer Bella ran off with.
The thought of losing the lively Duke was hard enough, but losing Bella, well, that was even harder. Bella is an emotional support dog and beyond the emotional attachments, Poteat knew it would be difficult to replace her.
“We had actually already gotten him another dog and we couldn’t make that dog an emotional support dog. This was the one,” she says. Yes, Bella was it. She was the dog who could help Poteat’s 20-year old son cope with his anxiety and, suddenly, she was gone.
Poteat says she and her husband spent hours walking the fields around their house and in nearby neighborhoods searching for the two lost dogs Friday. They searched and they feared. Recalling that deer hunting season recently began Poteat says, “We heard two gunshots and we thought somebody shot them.” She was relieved when her husband reminded her it’s bow hunting season and that “nobody’s supposed to be using guns.” Still, they walked the fields again at night searching for what they hoped they wouldn’t find: Searching to make sure “nobody shot them.”
There were no signs that they had.
Even that bit of solace though did little to ease their worry. Poteat says it was a rough night made even worse by the incessant whining of Bella’s other furry friend, a male German Shepherd the family owns who “just stood at the window whining all night.”
He’s not whining anymore.
Jamie’s plea for help was shared on several social media community sites including Now Habersham’s Facebook page and that’s where they saw it — a couple Poteat knows only by the first names of Sue and Robert who called her Saturday morning to tell her they’d found her dogs.
The couple found Bella and Duke at their home on Henry Nix Road just outside of Cleveland, GA some two-and-a-half miles from where they went missing 26 hours earlier. It wasn’t long before the Poteat family was reunited with the two wandering canines.
Jamie calls it “a relief” to have Bella and Duke back home where they’re loved and needed. She says her stepson is happy and adds, Bella and Duke seem happy, too, after their adventurous romp through White County.
There are many local social media sites aimed at helping to reunite lost pets with families. Here are links to a few of them:
Lost & Found DOGS of NE GA
Lost & Found Pets of Northeast Georgia
Charles Smithgall Humane Society
Habersham Shelter Kids
