In a story that proves sometimes life’s greatest surprises come with a wagging tail, an Arizona man’s quiet hope for a miracle finally trotted back into his life — eight years after it vanished into the Oklahoma night.
What began as a cross-country move filled with chaos turned into a decades-long saga of loss, resilience and a reunion that Hallmark might want to make a movie out of. Paul Guilbeault, a photographer, said he never stopped believing his miniature pinscher Damian would find his way home, even after the pup slipped his leash during a pit stop near Oklahoma City in 2017.
Paul Guilbeault put up ‘lost dog’ flyers after his pup went missing in 2017. Photo courtesy of Guilbeault
Guilbeault, mid-move from Massachusetts to Arizona, had stopped for a break when Damian bolted. “He either got fed up with being scolded or scared, and he just ran away. He started running down the service road, and I couldn’t catch him,” Guilbeault said. Despite a week-long search and years of social media pleas, Damian remained missing — until a miraculous text message changed everything.
I kept trying to search, but the search dwindled as the years went on. Eventually, it got to the point where just seeing his missing poster hurt too much, and I didn’t share it as often as I used to,” he said.
Fast-forward to present day, and Donna Bentley was driving near Oklahoma City when a small dog darted into traffic. “He turned to me when I picked him up. He was screaming and tried to bite me, but I wasn’t going to put him down and let him get run over,” Bentley said. Her brother, Rick Chambers, took the scrappy senior pup to a vet, where a microchip scan revealed an owner 1,300 miles away — Guilbeault, who was on his way to California to donate supplies to wildfire victims.
Paul Guilbeault and his now 13-year-old dog after being reunited. Photo courtesy of Guilbeault
“My Apple Watch gave me a little preview, and it said, ‘Your dog, Damian, has been found,’” Guilbeault said. “And I was like, ‘What the…?’” Skeptical but hopeful, he rerouted his trip, racing 14 hours to Oklahoma. There, he found a grayer, frailer Damian — but the connection was instant.
“Not until when I got in front of him that I realized how much of an old man he had become,” Guilbeault said. Yet the dog’s tail-wiggling joy erased the years apart. “When we go there, he gets such a smile on his face. Like, ‘I know where we’re at. I finally made it home,’” he said.
The journey back to Arizona was a blur of disbelief. “The whole time he was … curled up in a ball, and he would turn his head back, looking at me driving, and just have this giant smile,” Guilbeault said. “I feel like he was thinking, ‘Oh my god, is this real? Did I really find him finally?’”
Reflecting on the ordeal, Guilbeault emphasized the power of perseverance — and microchips. “Even in the darkest moments, you never give up hope,” he said. Though the years without Damian were painful — “I was his everything, as he was mine, and losing him was really, really tough”—the reunion reaffirmed his faith in happy endings.
As for Damian, now 13, he’s savoring his retirement as a certified miracle mutt. And Guilbeault? He’s just grateful the little dog was back at the one place he belonged: home.
