Abandoned puppy broke into animal shelter

Harry Houdini has nothing on this puppy. An 8-week-old Lab mix who had been left and tied up at the Humane Society of North Texas, managed to escape from his leash, wiggle his way into the shelter and squeeze into a kennel, where he made friends with an 85-pound Great Pyrenees. Employees found the two dogs curled up and asleep.

 "Some employees have been there 15 years or more, and they had never seen or heard of a dog breaking into the Humane Society," said Jerry Cook, a board member of the Fort Worth-based shelter. Part of the escape/break-in was caught on video by a surveillance camera. The puppy, since named Rudy, is seen pacing in front of a railing surrounding the shelter.

It was clear that Rudy, who didn't have a collar or a microchip, wanted to break in. Rudy, who weighs just under 5 pounds, had been dumped at the shelter on the night of Dec. 2. "People don't want to wait till the office opens, so they just leave them," said Peggy Brown, a shelter employee. "He chewed out of his leash." Then, instead of running away, Rudy apparently saw the other dogs and worked his way through the railing and inside the shelter.

Once there, Rudy found and befriended Duke, a 13-month-old Great Pyrenees. "It wasn't like Duke was at the entrance of the kennels," Cook said. "He was in the middle of the building, so Rudy had to have walked all that way." Again, Rudy squeezed through railings and became Duke's soul mate and cellmate. The magic relationship was short-lived. Both Rudy and Duke have now been adopted by new families.