Everyone is so thankful the family hadn't connected with another dog before reuniting with Dante.
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family looking for new dog finds one they lost
Credit: Courtesy of Fairfax County Animal Shelter

A family arrived at the Fairfax County Animal Shelter in Virginia earlier this week, its latest stop in a (so far) fruitless search for a new dog. 

In a Facebook post, the shelter wrote that the kind four-member family had been searching for a while but had yet to feel a "connection" with any pup. The trend seemed destined to continue as the family began to leave the shelter. 

That's when one of the kids noticed a photo on the wall of another available dog, one who looked like the dog they'd lost in a different county. Sure enough, it was Dante, their missing dog. 

"[He] was absolutely overjoyed to see his family," the shelter wrote on Facebook. "Lots of jumping and whining and tail wags, running from person to person as if to confirm that yes, they were REAL and they were here to take him HOME again!" 

The newly reunited family posed for a lovely photo, and a Facebook user commented that her sister had found the "very nice" Dante over the summer and brought him to the shelter. 

"Maybe this was the universe not letting them feel a connection with any other dog because Dante was still waiting for them," the shelter wrote.