Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Mar 4, 2026 8:00 AM EST

Breakups are never a good time, even if it's a "mutual" thing. In this friendly/ mutual" breakup turned sour, to no surprise of any woman, it was the man's fault that ruined anything good they had going on. How? By sneakily returning the dog that they raised together back to the shelter. UNFORGIVABLE. 

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  • The doggy mom just so happened to remember that her and her ex were still following each other on Find Me Friends, so, by some divine intervention, when she went to remove herself, she noticed that he was at the dog shelter they got the dog, Banjo, from. She was trying not to think the worst of her ex, she was choosing gentleness and understanding for this breakup. But after checking the shelter's dog list a few days later and seeing her sweet Banjo on there, she lost it. She claims she doesn't hate her ex, but everyone on the internet sure hates him for her. 

    Luckily, she was able to rescue Banjo and now he is living his best life back with his best hooman mama! 

  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha

  • "Okay, I'm filming this long-awaited story time… So it's been quite an interesting few days, but I'm gonna try to make this as quick as possible
    because I know people hate a long-winded story time and they just like, want the tea. It's not as big of like ‘a tea story’ as some people are probably hoping. I also like. No. I mean, yes, hate, but like, no hate to my ex. I'm not a hateful person. I don't like to put that energy out there. I have been holding on to a lot of anger from this situation and so I'm just trying to move past that.
     

    What he [my ex-boyfriend] did was not right, I don't agree with it, I think it could have been managed a lot better. But here we are. I have Banjo. Everything is okay now. So moving forward, I'm just trying to see the positives in it. But yeah…
     

    So, about two weeks ago, my ex and I ended on good terms. Friendly. He decided to take a job in the area that I had moved to, after he said that he wasn't going to. He adopted Banjo last may, so Banjo has always been his, but I helped raise him. We lived together and worked together previously. So, Banjo is just as much mine as he was my ex's. I love and care for him as my own.

    -sarah..ha

  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha

  • He [my ex] called me when he was moving out here and told me that Banjo's behavioral issues had gotten worse. I told him it was probably due to the fact that he was living in his car with two dogs. He did not have a job lined up after he left his previous job. And so he did not have an apartment, and he was, in fact, living in his car. 

    I told him that he should probably prioritize finding an apartment or finding a home somewhere that the dogs can really settle, and he had not done that. He had brought up Banjo's reactivity to strangers, to people outside of the car, on bikes, other dogs, and that it had increased, and that he was really having to consider rehoming him.
     

    And so I said, 'before you make any rash decisions, before you talk about rehoming him, I can take him for a few days. I really am not looking for a pet. I don't really want a dog. Like, Banjo is yours, but, like, don't make any rash decisions, because obviously I love this dog.'  He said ‘okay.’ 

    When he moved here, he reached out to me a few different times. So, I kind of set a boundary with him, just being like, 'hey, I know that you're living here now, but, um, I'm trying to move on with my life. There just can't be the expectation that we're gonna be talking and hanging out and seeing each other in the same capacity that we were… I'm just trying to move on with my life, like it is what it is.' And he never responded to that [or] never acknowledged it. 

    -sarah..ha

  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha

  • So a few days later, I went to unshare my location with him on Find My Friends, and he just so happened to be at the animal shelter that he had gotten Banjo from. I saw that on Find of My Friends… I was like, 'Well, that's suspicious, considering the last conversation we had on the phone he was talking about possibly having to rehome him and so on and so forth.' 

    And so over the next few days, I just refreshed the available dogs page on the shelter and then saw that he was listed about three days later on the shelter's website. He was surrendered underneath the original name that he had at the shelter, not Banjo. I don't know why. I don't know his [my ex's] reasoning. I texted my ex when I saw that he [Banjo] was surrendered. I said, 'I can't believe you would do this. I told you I would take him. I'm heartbroken.'
     

    You know, it's three and a half hours away from me, [from where] we lived. I mean, he's in the same city as me! He could have just given Banjo to me instead of taking him three and a half hours away and surrendering him to the shelter. That's a lot of the rage that I'm holding on to right now. So I texted him, he read my text, [and] he never responded.
     

    [Anyways,] we had some friends that had put a hold on him [Banjo], and we're talking about adopting him and then chose not to. And so I had talked to the shelter, I had asked them if they could put a hold on him for me. They said that they couldn't put a hold on him unless I had seen him in person. So, I had explained the situation, so they told me they could put a drive-hold on him.

    -sarah..ha

  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • happla EN FEST 1034 PMC Mare Ausible On poy you drive 8hr round trip to pick up the dog your ex decided to bring back to the shelter without telling you Mystery typWoman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha

  • My manager and my coworkers are awesome. My manager said, ‘Do what you need to do.’ So, I took a half-day off of work on Friday, and I drove three and a half hours there and about four hours back to get him.

    When I talked to the shelter on Thursday or Wednesday, whatever, I think it was Thursday, um, they called me back a little bit later
    and they had put a complimentary hold on him for me, so that I didn't have to worry about somebody coming in like that day and taking him home… I'm very grateful to them for that. I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't offered me that opportunity, but I did not get him for free… My best friend in the whole wide world, she and her husband actually, paid for his adoption fee for me, which is literally the nicest thing in the whole wide world. I didn't ask them to do that, but they offered and they… Yeah, big thank you to Ellie. […] Yeah, he was not cheap. He was full price. 

    But, no questions. He belongs here with me. So, yeah, I picked him up, drove back and we've just been getting settled, getting into a little bit of a routine with him, and just trying to give him a reset and the restart that he deserves.
     

    But, yeah, that's why it was such an emotional homecoming, because had I not, at that exact moment, seen his location at the shelter, I don't think I would have known. And I don't know where Banjo would be now. So that's the story."

    -sarah..ha

  • WATCH:

    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha
  • Woman drives 8 hours to pick up the dog her ex secretly returned to the shelter, sparks heartwarming emotional reunion: 'Because that's my little baby boy!'
    via sarah..ha

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dog shelter wholesome dogs pet parents doggo uplifting happy animals
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