Halfway down the row, I heard my partner say, “Oh my god.”

There she was—our dog, curled up in the corner of the kennel like she’d shrunk into herself. She didn’t even look up at first.

I knelt down and whispered her name.

That’s when she blinked, stood up slowly, and came over, tail low but wagging.

I thought that was it. We were crying, she was licking our hands, and I was ready to sign whatever paper they had just to get her out of there.

But then a worker came out from the back office, holding a clipboard. She looked at the dog, then at us.

“You said you lost her a month ago?” she asked.