Family reunites with dog they had to give up

SANTA FE (KRQE) - A Santa Fe family who had to give up their beloved pup after falling on hard financial times was reunited with the dog this week.

Delfino Montoya and his family said it was love at first sight, as soon as they saw the brown a white pit bull puppy they knew they had to have him. They named him Oden.
"Oden was very happy, became part of our family very fast," said Amanda Moncada.

However, just a couple months after getting the pup the family found themselves in a financial pickle.

"I had lost my job and could no longer take care of him, so we had no place else to go," Montoya said.

That led them to the Santa Fe County Animal Shelter and Humane Society where they parted ways with Oden.

"It was so hard.  We all cried," Moncada said.  "I had to tell my daughter that we kept him at a friend's house.  We didn't tell her that we had to bring him to the animal shelter."

The family gave Oden up last summer.

The energetic puppy quickly became a staff and volunteer favorite, but he wasn't adjusting well to life in the shelter.

As months went by with no one willing to adopt him he started to deteriorate.

"Our volunteer staff, our behavior team, worked with him on a daily basis," said Director of Adoptions Kelly Tribelhorn.
   
All that hard work though wasn't helping, and because of that it was the shelter staff who now faced a tough decision: find Oden a home and soon or put him down.

So they called Oden's family to see if they were able to take him back.

"We finally got our own place, and we've been talking about it for a while about getting him back, and then the shelter called," Moncada said.

The family jumped at the chance.  They were reunited with Oden on Wednesday and said even after seven months apart it was like they'd never missed a beat.

Oden recognized them almost immediately.

"We were very lucky and happy that our families finally complete now," said Moncada.

The family kept tabs on Oden by checking the shelter's website to see if he had been adopted.