UPDATE: At a property hearing in Texas on Wednesday morning, a judge determined Alexandra Melnick to be the owner of the dog, Denton County Constable Doug Boydston said. No one from the home where the dog was seized showed up to contest the matter. Within an hour of the hearing, Boydston said, shelter officials released Kai to Melnick.

“She can go home with her dog and start bonding again after nine months, which is amazing,” Boydston said.

On a Facebook page dedicated to finding Kai, Melnick posted an update Wednesday morning stating she was bringing Kai back to California.

“I feel beyond blessed to have my baby boy home,” she wrote. She also noted that the dog had been flea-infested, and in some spots was bald with open sores.

Marine veteran Alexandra Melnick was reunited with her service animal Kai on Wednesday after she tracked him down in Texas. — Courtesy Facebook

A Marine veteran's missing service dog turned up in Texas last week, nine months after the German shepherd disappeared — and was possibly stolen — from a North County home, a Vista-based sheriff’s detective said Tuesday.



On Aug. 31, a tip led Kai’s owner, Alexandra Melnick, to a home in Aubrey, about an hour north of Dallas. The Vista woman flew to Texas and confirmed that her dog was at the home, Detective Debra Hutches said.

Melnick reached out to Texas law enforcement. Once they confirmed that Melnick had reported the dog missing in December, animal control officers seized Kai on Sept. 2. A scan of his microchip confirmed the dog's identity.

A hearing is scheduled Wednesday in Texas to determine her ownership of Kai, Hutches said.

Through email, Melnick declined to comment until after the hearing, but said that Kai "is in very poor health, and that is my first concern."

Hutches declined to provide details regarding the suspect, but said that “all indications and evidence leads us to believe that the suspect knows” that Kai had been reported missing.

The detective said an investigation is under way.

Kai went missing the day after Thanksgiving from Melnick’s backyard. She has been searching for the dog ever since, taking her story to local media and setting up a popular Facebook page — which proved fruitful, because that was where she reportedly got the tip as to Kai’s whereabouts.

Kai is more than a pet to Melnick, who had once worked in motor transport for the Marine Corps, and in 2011 was deployed to Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. An accident there left her with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After leaving Marine Corps in 2013, she bought the 12-week-old puppy and trained him to wake her from nightmares, ease her insomnia and serve as a boundary protector.

When he went missing, Melnick was devastated, and determined to find him. The ensuing search involved a team of volunteers, two pet detectives and a network of more than 10,000 dog-lovers who shared their leads and photos of possible Kai sightings on Facebook.