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Dogs Reunited With Their Owners After Pet Resort Mixes Them Up

Written by: Scott H
Scott Haiduc is the Director of Publishing for iHeartDogs, iHeartCats and The Hero Company. When not working, Scott spends his time on the farm, taking care of his animals and crops.Read more
| Published on May 16, 2017

It’s hard to believe that you might not recognize your own dog, but there might be someone there to make you question yourself. That’s exactly what happened to Santoria Nesbit when she went to pick up her dog, Prince, from the Tampa Pet Resort and Spa. When she arrived to pick up Prince, she was given a dog she didn’t think was him. But despite her skepticism, the staff member of the Resort assured her that the dog was indeed Prince. “She really made me feel like I could possibly not know my dog, that’s weird to say but every pushback I had she had some sort of justification,” she told Fox 13.

Nesbit, however, said she was positive she was given the wrong dog as soon as she got in the car. She decided to take the dog home and return the next day looking for Prince. It turns out that Prince had gone home with another family – the family who owned the dog Nesbit went home with. Thankfully, the incident was short-lived and both dogs were returned to their original families. Tampa Pet Resort and Spa has apologized profusely for the mix-up and comped Prince’s stay.


Tampa Pet Resort and Spa has decided to improve their identification and release procedures. Moving forward, all pets will receive an identification tag with their name and room number on it. They’re also going to further train staff members to make sure something like this never happens again. Thankfully the dogs are all unharmed, but this certainly isn’t the kind of situation you want to come home to after being on vacation. It also goes to show that owners know their dogs, and even though Nesbit was persuaded to take the strange pup home and care for him, she knew Prince was somewhere waiting for her.

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