After Four Months, Venezuelan Migrant Family Reunites With Dog

After a nearly four-month tug-of-war, the family of Rosemely Perez, who came to Denver as Venezuelan migrants, were reunited with their pet, a poodle named Mia Fernanda, who walked through nine countries with her owners only to be separated from them in December.


Perez left South America with her husband, three children, sister and one-year-old Mia in July. Although they're Venezuelan, they walked from Peru, where they had been working, to the United States.

With Mia in a backpack or in their arms, they passed through the dangerous Dorien Gap in South America, survived the kidnapping of two of the children, then saw Perez's husband refused entry at the U.S. border and deported back to Venezuela. 

Perez, her sister, her children and Mia arrived in Denver in late October; they came to this city on the advice of a friend who had arrived a few years earlier. Bu they weren't able to take Mia into the Central Park migrant shelter where they were staying.

While Perez was out with her friend, looking for clothes for her children, she happened by the Mountain View home of Andrea Ryall, the founder of an offshoot of the Highland Mommies group dedicated to helping Venezuelan migrants, where she met Ryall's neighbor, Julia Keneipp. 

Keneipp offered to pick up Mia from the shelter and take care of her until Perez found stable housing. Unable to host Mia herself because of her own dog's health and behavioral problems, Keneipp took Mia to stay with her in-laws in mid-November.
Keneipp's in-laws took Mia to a vet, who told them the dog had "a variety of parasites: giardia, hookworms, elevated white blood cell count, an abdominal abscess, several teeth requiring extraction and a very menacing infection called cryptosporidium, which is lethal if untreated and transferable not only to other dogs but to humans," Keneipp says.

Over WhatsApp messages, Keneipp told Perez that the cost to treat these ailments was between $2,000 and $3,275, an impossible amount for Perez to pay considering she barely had enough for clothes, food or shelter. As an alternative, Keneipp offered "a permanent adoption" if her in-laws were going to spend the money on vets for Mia, she told Perez. "It's the only way she will survive."

But after Keneipp picked Mia up from the Denver Animal Shelter on November 12, Perez wasn't able to even see her. Frustrated, Perez called the police to report her dog stolen, but when cops showed up at Keneipp's home, she had paperwork to show that Mia had been released to her.

Keneipp then got a lawyer, who advised her to stop talking to Perez. But a family housing Perez began looking for legal help for her, too.

"It was an honor to be there when they were reunited," she adds. "Mia was incredibly excited to be with her family again, and I could see the joy it brought them all."