A woman went on a 'wild goose chase' for hours at an Atlanta airport to find the chihuahua that had been separated from its owner and lost for 3 weeks

11.09.2023 - 04:47 / insider.com

A woman found the missing Chihuahua, who was lost for three weeks after being separated from her owner at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, on Saturday.

Robin Allgood, who lives south of Atlanta, Georgia, never met Paula Camila Rodriguez, a 25-year-old from the Dominican Republic.

But those close to Allgood know that she has a passion for dogs and spends much of her time in retirement reuniting lost pets to their owners as a pet recovery specialist.

So friends quickly began tagging Allgood on social media about Rodriguez's lost Chihuahua mix, Maia.

Rodriguez told The Washington Post that she had been separated from her dog at the Atlanta airport on August 18 due to issues with her visa that forced her to spend a night at the airport detention facility. A Delta staff told Rodriguez that Maia would be safely kept at a pet facility.

However, Rodriguez returned to her home in the Dominican Republic without her dog. Delta staff later told her that her dog escaped her kennel.

Delta Airlines at one point offered her $1,800 in light of Rodriguez's lost dog, according to CBS News correspondent David Begnaud. Rodriguez's attorney called Delta's offer an "insult," Begnaud reported.

A Delta spokesperson previously told Insider that the $1,800 payment was not an "offer of compensation."

Allgood quickly reached out to Rodriguez on social media.

"I will not charge you anything. I will go put signs up. I'll pass flyers out," Allgood recalled the messages to Rodriguez in an interview with Insider. "I will be you in Georgia because you're not here. I promise you I'll find your dog. I promise you."

On Saturday morning, Allgood made good on that promise.

Around 2:30 a.m., Allgood was woken up by a call about a sighting of a small black Chihuahua. The tip came from an employee at FedEx, which has a facility near Hartsfield-Jackson airport — the last place Rodriguez was with her dog.

According to Allgood, the employee saw the flyers she had placed and recognized Maia. He tried to catch the dog but she ran away. Several other people had spotted Maia that week, he told Allgood.

"I jumped out of the bed. I threw on some clothes. I don't even know if I brushed my teeth," Allgood told Insider. "But I took off to the airport and tried to get into FedEx's area."

From then on, Allgood was led on a five-hour "wild goose chase between Delta and FedEx," according to an update on Facebook, where Allgood and almost 600 members supported the search efforts for the missing dog.

According to Allgood, a manager at the FedEx facility said that she would have to have a Delta employee escort her onto the property.

Allgood told Insider that Delta initially "refused to help."

"They said they needed a picture of proof that the