Missing dog returned home and rang doorbell to be let in

Come fireworks season, dog owners have to watch out that their hearing-sensitive canines don’t split when the explosions start.

Luckily when one pup ran away from home after being startled by a neighbor’s early Fourth of July firecrackers, she found her way back.

Since it was the middle of the night, 18-month old Labrador-Catahoula leopard mix Rajah wanted to let her owners know she was there. So she rang the doorbell.

You can see the funny footage below, captured on the video doorbell system of her owners, Mary Lynn Whitacre and Ryan Washick. Rajah rings the doorbell with her nose and then turns to look straight into the camera like she’s waiting to be let in.

Washick posted the footage to Reddit:

Our dog who ran off on an adventure for 7.5 hours ringing our doorbell at 3 am to let us know she’s home from funny

Whitacre and Washick had recently moved with Rajah and their other dog to a new home near Greenville, South Carolina. And while Rajah and gotten out before, she’d never been gone for more than 5-10 minutes before getting caught. This time, she was gone for more than eight hours.

The couple went looking for Rajah as soon as they saw she’d jumped their backyard fence. But after several hours of searching and updating social media (including the post below) about their missing pup, Rajah hadn’t been found.

So when Washick heard the sound of their doorbell camera around 3 a.m., he told Inside Edition, “I just looked outside and I thought someone had maybe brought back our dog.”

The pair started “dying laughing” when they saw it was Rajah herself. She was dirty and had thorns in her fur, according to a Facebook post, so her owners think she had a bit of an adventure.

“She thought she was in so much trouble and she was sad and sulking, but we were like ‘we’re just happy you’re back,'” Whitacre told SWNS. “It was hilarious, and we couldn’t stop laughing.”

Whitacre also told the TV network that Rajah had never rung their front doorbell before. They didn’t realize she knew how to use it.

Washick said in The State that he plans to put up cattle fencing to keep their jumping dog in the yard with her sibling, 2-month-old shepherd mix Ollie, from now on.

This isn’t the only excitement these dog owners have experienced as of late. While honeymooning on Kauai in May, their rental car was hit by another vehicle, leaving Whitacre with severe bruising on her legs that required the use of a crutch for the rest of the trip.

Here’s to hoping the rest of their first year of marriage is less eventful!

Animals, News, Pets

About the Author
Anna Weaver
Anna Weaver is a writer and multimedia journalist from Hawaii. Her two young kids keep her on her toes and hooked on online shopping. Anna’s also a fan of movies, reading, photography, and sharing far too many IG stories about cute dogs and capybaras. Visit Scripps News to see more of Anna's work.

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