I while agoI posted a story about a woman who had lost her rat terrier. The woman was deaf and the dog (Fluke) acted as her ears and alerted her to sounds in her home, like the telephone, door, etc....
WELL:
Minnesota And Wisconsin / Dog's wanderlust brings him home
After 2 escapes, 1 shelter stay, terrier returned to deaf owner
Fluke, a rat terrier, got away from owner Rosana Plaza's son Feb. 5 in St. Paul. A neighbor who chased him down gave him to a couple. Fluke eventually was taken to a Coon Rapids animal shelter. (Courtesy of Rosana Plaza)
A deaf Wisconsin woman and the dog that served as her ears are together again, five months after the dog went missing.
Fluke, a 4-year-old rat terrier, took a circuitous, human-to-human route to the Humane Society for Companion Animals in Coon Rapids, where he had been since May 2. Rosana Plaza, of Hammond, Wis., learned of his whereabouts Tuesday and went to the shelter to pick him up.
"Thank GOD no one adopt(ed) him," Plaza wrote on Craigslist.com as an open note of gratitude after the reunion. Plaza had posted a "lost dog" notice on the classified advertising Web site, and the Pioneer Press published a story about Plaza's plea for the dog's return.
"SO good to have him HOME and we went to DQ to get special treat," Plaza wrote.
Fluke was at the home of Plaza's son, in St. Paul's North End, when he got loose during a walk Feb. 5. The dog, which could alert Plaza to a ringing phone, a knock at the door and a running faucet, among other events, wore a collar bearing Plaza's phone number but not the one for the interpreting service to make the connection.
A woman who lives nearby quickly spotted and chased down the dog. She called a number on the collar but not the interpreting service and reached someone who wasn't familiar with the situation. She was on her way to an animal shelter in Minneapolis with Fluke when she ran into an elderly couple who offered to take the dog, saying they would give him to their grandson as a gift.
The day after giving the couple the dog, the woman saw an ad in the Pioneer Press: "LOST M tri-color rat terrier 2/5 @ Como/Front 'Fluke' Deaf-owner trained."
It isn't clear what the couple did with Fluke, said Katie Jackson of the Coon Rapids shelter, but the dog was spotted running loose in Columbia Heights and taken to the shelter May 2. A woman browsing photos on the shelter's Web site connected Fluke to the lost-dog story she had read and alerted the shelter. A shelter official then called Plaza.
Plaza wasn't available by phone Wednesday, but in her online note of thanks, she called her reunion with Fluke a "miracle." 
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