BAKERSFIELD, CA. — It's the story of a homecoming that took a pair of Great Danes on a road trip across the country. Thanks to the kindness of a group of strangers on Facebook the danes were reunited with their family in Bakersfield after traveling across the country for four days with 14 different families they had never met before. The anticipated reunion happened at noon on Wednesday, December 12 at Mill Creek Park in Bakersfield.
Ashley Chacon and her husband are a military family that was relocated from New Jersey to California last month. They left their two dogs, Yukon and Yoda, with their family in New Jersey after planning to have them transported by a professional dog service. They paid about $2,000 only to realize halfway across the country that the organizer wouldn't pick up the phone or answer any messages.
"I had used this guy before," said Chacon. "We set everything up, everything seemed fine until two days before he was supposed to pick them up."
Chacon feared she would never see her dogs again. She turned to Dawn Scates' Great Dane Facebook page called 'It's not a dog, it's a dane.' The page has over 16,000 members.
"When I first heard about this, I just thought what it would be like if it was my dogs and they were across the entire country. I don't know what I would do.. so, I felt like we needed to fix it. Within 48 hours, we had the entire chain put together," said Scates.
Chacon says after watching Yukon and Yoda travel with 14 different families through 10 different states, the experience is still shocking to her.
"Again, I'm just so grateful that every single one of those people in the Great Dane group helped me and so willingly, open heartedly, genuinely care to help a stranger. This proved me wrong, there are good people out there," says Chacon.
