Area group helps reunite local woman with her lost dog after four years

Waiting to interview for a new day job at Claim Jumper on Olive Avenue on Monday afternoon, Carrie Jo Hubrich got an unexpected text message about her purebred French bulldog, Bella.

“There’s no way,” she thought, not sure if she should tell the interviewer and leave, or stay and muddle through. “This can’t be possible.”

The message was unexpected because Bella had gone missing roughly four years ago when Hubrich was single and living in North Hollywood. In fact, she had just started dating James Crosby, with whom she now lives in Burbank. He helped her put up fliers and search for the missing puppy.

“He was amazing,” she said.

Eventually, the couple “started a family, a real family,” she said, welcoming their son, Pressly, into their lives nearly three years ago. Yet Bella, who had slipped out a gate that had been left open, was still out of the picture, until Monday when she was reunited with Hubrich thanks to the work of a group of pet-rescuing volunteers.

The dogs in Betty Fuentes’ neighborhood in Pacoima were barking loudly Saturday night, around 2 a.m., and when she went outside to see what was the matter, she found a black lump in the middle of the street. It was Bella, breathing heavy from being overweight and having sinus trouble, said Elaine Berkovitz-Cunningham, who helped Fuentes reunite Bella with Hubrich.

Fuentes took Bella in, but couldn’t get her to eat. Assuming she was a lost dog, she took her to a veterinarian to have her scanned for a microchip. The scan turned up nothing, and after walking the neighborhood looking for an owner, Fuentes called Diane Pfeifer in Woodland Hills for help finding a foster home. Pfeifer called Berkovitz-Cunningham, who owns a French bulldog, too.

The three women are all members of a 2,700-member Facebook group called San Fernando Valley – SFV Lost and Found Pets. The group, which Berkovitz-Cunningham said has an active core of about 12 members, works to reunite lost pets and owners. It was started over a year ago by Sarah Fitzgerald, who runs Designer Dog Rescue in Sylmar.

Members each have their own skills, Berkovitz-Cunningham said. For example, she’s a foster, Fuentes is a matcher, some are online posters and some others are trappers — the ones who catch the skittish runaways. One woman in the group, Berkovitz-Cunningham said, is a “dog magnet.” They communicate and collaborate via Facebook’s messaging function.

“We’re all in awe of each other’s abilities,” she said. “We just do whatever it takes to get the dogs home, one dog at a time.”

On Wednesday night, for example, Berkovitz-Cunningham took the group’s single universal microchip scanner to scan a black-and-white terrier that was found near Lake Balboa. She found a chip, but the owner had never registered it online and so there was no phone number to call.

Using the chip’s serial number, Berkovitz-Cunningham tracked it to a shelter in Long Beach where it had been implanted. The shelter was able to provide the number of the owner and, on Thursday, dog and owner were reunited.

Berkovitz-Cunningham also said a woman who had found a lost dog last week learned that it was pregnant and ready to give birth, so group members spent seven hours online guiding her through the birthing process.

On Fourth of July weekend, when dogs often run away because they’re frightened by fireworks, the group marshaled a kind of task force headquartered at Berkovitz-Cunningham’s Tarzana home, which was able to catch and return 20 dogs.

Over the long term, they don’t keep track of how many they’ve reunited, said Berkovitz-Cunningham, who was on her way to scan another dog Thursday. “It’s never-ending,” she said.

It takes hours of volunteer effort to match dogs to owners, she said, but it could be made easier if everyone would spend the $15 to $20 to get their pets chipped. Owners also need to register the chip online with their contact information and keep it updated.

“There’s no reason not to do it,” she said. “It’s your family member.”

Berkovitz-Cunningham looked at Bella and “just had a gut feeling” that she was chipped, even though the vet’s scan was negative. She said there are reasons that can happen — low batteries, a scanner that isn’t capable of sensing off-brand chips or the extra weight Bella was carrying.

It took a few scans with the group’s universal scanner to find that Bella was chipped, but the chip had moved around and was under her front leg. Thankfully, the phone number registered with the chip was still accurate, which is how the group was able to contact Hubrich at her job interview and arrange the reunion.

Hubrich called Fuentes, Pfeifer and Berkovitz-Cunningham “amazing women... angel women.” She did the interview, then left to get Bella after explaining the story to her son.

“It’s all been such an amazing blur,” Hubrich said, adding that she got the job, too.

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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com