A 9-Year-Old Lost Her Dad on Vacation. Then His Last Gift to Her — a Dog Named Major — Went Missing.
A Roselle Park, New Jersey, family was already reeling from an unimaginable loss when a second heartbreak struck: the dog their father had bought for his 9-year-old daughter’s birthday had vanished. What happened next, thanks to social media and a determined police officer, is the kind of story that earns every bit of your attention.
A Birthday Gift, a Trip Abroad and a Sudden Loss
Javon, 40, of Roselle Park, had purchased a Cockapoo named Major as a birthday present for his daughter. Before traveling abroad, he left Major with a pet sitter, Grace Reyes, with plans to pick the dog up on Friday, March 20.
Javon never came home. He died unexpectedly while on vacation.
His family was left not only grieving a father, a brother and a friend — but also scrambling to find a dog they didn’t even know how to locate. They had no contact information for Reyes and no idea where Major was being kept.
A Family’s Desperate Search
Javon’s loved ones launched a search campaign for Major, turning to social media to spread the word. By March 24, the dog had been missing from the family’s reach since that Friday.
“We were dealing with the loss of a brother, a father, and a friend,” Javon’s best friend David told ABC7 / Eyewitness News on March 24.
“So, I think dealing with that and then also the loss of potentially our dog Major, I think that’s just really going to, you know, put us in a different space. But if we are able to find out more, just make things just a little, a little better than it is right now.”
The Pet Sitter Had No Idea
On the other side of the story, Reyes was growing worried herself. She had expected Javon to pick Major up on Friday, and the messages between them had stopped going through the day before.
“[Major] was supposed to be picked up on Friday and so the messages stopped going through on Thursday and I started getting worried,” Reyes said.
She had been searching social media for the family at the same time they were searching for her. Then, on March 24, Reyes’ aunt spotted a viral post about Major.
“Isn’t this the dog that you take care of all the time, Major?” her aunt said.
“My heart dropped finding out what happened, finding out that his family was worried sick about wondering where Major was,” Reyes told ABC7.
A Police Chief’s Promise
Once contact was made, Major was brought to the Roselle Park Police Department. Officer Vincent Picarelli took on the task of getting the dog home.
“Thanks to Eyewitness News and other friends and family that blasted this all over social media, they were able to locate where Major actually was,” Picarelli said.
Roselle Park Police Chief Dominick Frino said the case hit him personally.
“I’m a father of two daughters and this just broke my heart when I heard this story,” Frino said.
“We have Officer Picarelli and I told him yesterday we have to this young puppy for this 9-year-old daughter,” Frino said. “He told me ‘Chief, don’t worry about it’ and he said ‘I’ll have this dog for you by the end of the day.’”
On Wednesday, March 25, the 9-year-old girl was reunited with Major — her father’s last gift to her, safely home at last. A family already shouldering the weight of Javon’s death had one small, bright moment returned to them.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
