Garland dog Desmond, missing since a 2023 Super Bowl party, is known by an old trick and goes home

Desmond went missing during a Super Bowl party in 2023. In July a scared dog arrived at the animal shelter in Garland, Texas, and the staff named him Ash. This week his family saw a post about him, came with old photographs, and knew him for certain when he did a trick his owner had taught him.

12 October 2026

A grey dog in a blue harness sitting on a leash beside a family of four, a father, a boy, and a mother holding a toddler, in front of a stone wall.
Desmond with his family outside the Garland Animal Shelter this week.
Photo: Garland Animal Services, via WFAA

Desmond went missing during a Super Bowl party in 2023, WFAA reported. His family searched near and far and put up fliers, and as the years went by they began to fear they would never see him again.

On 14 July 2026 a frightened dog was brought into the Garland Animal Shelter and Adoption Center. Nobody there knew he had a family looking for him, so the staff named him Ash. They gave him time, patience and attention, and over the summer the nervous dog grew confident enough to strut around the place as if he owned it, the shelter said.

The post

This week his family came across a social media post about a dog who looked remarkably like Desmond. They went to the shelter with old photographs and compared his markings with the dog in front of them.

Then the dog did a trick his owner had taught him years before. At that moment, everyone knew that Ash was Desmond, and he went home with his family after three years apart.

The shelter thanked its staff and the volunteers of Friends of Rescue Animals for looking after him until his family found him.

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Everything here is from the report of 9 October 2026 by WFAA in Dallas, drawing on the Garland Animal Shelter and Adoption Center’s post. The photograph is the shelter’s, as published by WFAA.
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