Dog Lived With Coyotes. Now He Sleeps in a 'Fluffy Bed'

The dog is a friendly bull terrier mix who became famous in the Las Vegas area for roaming with coyotes. Now he's at the center of a strange custody dispute between the women who rescued him from the wild—they know him as Ghost—and the family who says he is their lost dog named Hades, reports KTNV. The nonprofit Animal Foundation shelter that had been caring for the dog is convinced that he is indeed Hades and returned him to the Cabada family of Las Vegas. The organization released a video—see it via USA Today—of the dog happily greeting the family.

"There was plenty of evidence this was their dog," says the foundation's Kelsey Pizzi. The Cabadas say Hades got lost when he escaped from the home of a family member who was dog-sitting him. Later, residents of Henderson, Nevada, began seeing a white dog roaming with a small pack of coyotes, and he eventually appeared to be in rough shape physically. Susan McMullen of the Southern Nevada Trapping Team captured the dog, and his story made national headlines. That's how the Cabada family spotted him.

McMullen doesn't think the dog she calls Ghost is Hades, and neither does Carole Sandy of the Amor Peludo Animal Shelter, which initially cared for the dog after his rescue. The Cabadas contacted the shelter and went to McMullen's house, which is when the police got involved. Police turned the dog over to the Animal Foundation, which sided with the Cabada family. "We got him some Valentine's treats, he's here, home in his big old fluffy bed," says Christy Cabada. But the battle might not be over. "We're not going to give up," says Sandy. "We're going to pursue this by any legal means possible." (More dogs stories.)