DENVER -- Over the last two weeks, Lisa Cook has been plastering fliers of her family's 6-year-old Party Yorkie Stella.
Back on Halloween, her 9-year-old son was handing out candy on their front porch in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood, when a large group of trick-or-treaters came and went along with Stella.
"My son has been totally blaming himself for the whole thing because he felt like he lost the dog," said Cook. "It's just been awful."
The crime connected the community, with hundreds sharing posts on Facebook and Nextdoor to help find the family's dog.
Late Monday night, she got the answer she had been waiting for.
"She said, 'I have your dog.' I literally fell to the floor and almost couldn't speak and was like, 'Can you send me a picture?' so she sent me a picture and it was for sure Stella," said Cook.
The woman claimed she had bought Stella from a man in a red van outside Hobby Lobby, and then saw the missing dog reward fliers.
"I just kept hugging her and I gave her the reward money, and I just wanted to take my dog home," said Cook.
Stella has since been to the vet and the groomer.
"I ran straight here to get here so I could hold her," said Deidre Hered, who owns The Wag Shop mobile groomers. "She's the sweetest little baby."
Whatever happened to her dog, Cook is making sure it never happens again.
"There are cameras all over this house now," she said.
Her focus for now, though, is that her family is finally back together.
