Dog Found in Niles Reunited With Northwest Indiana Owner 3 Years Later

It was a phone call Andrea Kelly figured would never come.

Early last month, the Michigan City, Indiana, woman answered a call coming from the Niles police. Not the police in Niles, Michigan — a short drive northeast of Michigan City, but the ones from Niles, Illinois — a city some 75 miles to the west.

“They said they knew it was going to be a weird call and asked if I had sold a dog to Westchester (Animal Clinic in Chesterton, Ind.),” Kelly remembers. “I said I hadn’t but I have taken my dog there. Then they said they had identified a chip in a lost dog that came back to me, so I put two and two together and figured it must be Rima.”

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It was. Rima, Kelly’s dog who had gotten loose from her back yard two-and-a-half years earlier, was found by police at a gas station on Touhy Avenue with puppies after a call came in of stray animals lurking in the area. Police used a chip to connect her with the veterinarian in Chesterton, who connected them with Kelly.

Now 4 years old, Rima the pit bull escaped from Kelly and her family’s care one day in November 2012.

“We were all outside and she was there one second and gone the next,” Kelly remembers.

Friends and family immediately began an extensive search. They went door to door, dropped off flyers on vehicles and at the local Wal-Mart and Meijer stores and called the local radio station for help spreading the word. But there was no sign of Rima, a puppy still less than a year old when she ran away.

“We had no luck at all,” said Kelly, who admitted after a month she had given up hope and adopted another female pit bull - fittingly named, Karma.

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But more than two years later when the call came from Illinois, Kelly and her husband immediately headed to Niles to pick up Rima. They knew it was her because of the connection with the chip, but were nervous about how she would appear and what kind of health they would find her in.

“But she looked fine,” Kelly said.

Kelly said she adopted one of the puppies, too, but it became apparent he was not used to humans handling him and he escaped shortly after Kelly returned to Indiana.

Now, Kelly and her husband plan to take Rima on walks in the neighborhood and a nearby dog park, just like they had done when she was a baby.

“It’s really amazing,” Kelly said. “You hear stories like these a lot, but you never really think something like this is going to affect you. I’m so glad Rima is alive and OK.”

As for where she’s been the last two-and-a-half years, only Rima will know for sure.

But for what it’s worth, Kelly said she tends to agree with police, who originally theorized the dog was found off a highway in Michigan City and adopted by a truck driver, who likely ditched the dog after she had puppies.

“I’m sure she has quite a story,” Kelly said. “But we’ll never know.”

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Photos: 1. Rima now. 2. Rima with her new buddy, Karma, on the couch. 3. Rima as a puppy before she went missing. 4. A Before-After look after Kelly received the call from Niles police.

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Note: This is an updated version of a story that first appeared on the Niles-Morton Grove Patch on Wednesday, May 13.