This Woman Was Reunited with Her Missing Dog After Spotting Him on a Beer Can

Though attitudes about its consumption may have shifted amid the rise of spiked seltzer, the fact remains that beer is great. One of the few things that’s better than cracking open a cold one is picking up some beers featuring labels that feature adoptable rescue dogs.

But for one woman who’d probably given up hope of ever finding her long-lost pup, a beer can sold halfway across the country granted her the gift of a cherished and wholly unexpected reunion.

As the story goes, Bradenton, Florida brewery Motorworks recently released four packs of a beer called Adoptable Dog Cruiser Kölsch. Each can depicted a pup ready for adoption from the Manatee County Animal Shelter, who also received a cut of the beer’s proceeds.

Somehow, Monica Mathis spotted a post from the brewery on social media and was shocked to find one of the dogs on the can bore an uncanny resemblance to her terrier mix Hazel, who disappeared from her front yard in Iowa all the way back in 2017.

After likely giving up hope of finding Hazel once her family relocated to Minnesota, Mathis suddenly had a shocking lead. But given how far Florida was from where Hazel was lost (and not to mention that the shelter believed the dog’s name to be Day Day), Mathis had to convince the Manatee County Animal Shelter that the canine on the can belonged to her.

“I sent everything I could find — all the pictures so I could stop an adoption process from happening because I could've lost her again," Mathis told KTSP Minneapolis.

Luckily, it worked: the shelter confirmed that the dog on the can of Kölsch was in fact Hazel. That’s set the stage for an emotional reunion between Hazel and Mathis just in time to celebrate the dog’s 7th birthday, with the shelter paying transportation costs between Florida and Minnesota. Given that Hazel will be turning 49 in dog years, I’d say she deserves a celebratory beer.