On a stormy night over two months ago, a dog named Romeo ran out of his owner's tent.

Mike Stotts looked for Romeo for several days, worried he may never find his best friend.

But Romeo was found on Sunday and reunited with Stotts on Tuesday.

"(I) assumed he was dead. It was like someone rising from the dead," Stotts said.

After searching for Romeo for three days, even commissioning other hikers, rangers, and making signs and posting them all over Hyde Memorial State Park, he drove back to Austin, TX.

He eventually had to accept that Romeo would not show up and started looking around Austin shelters for another dog.

"Unfortunately, every time I went there and looked at them, they just weren't Romeo," he said.

But everything changed on Sunday when Stotts got a call from a California area code. He said at first he thought it was just a solicitor.

During Fourth of July festivities, pet owners should take special care of their pets. This time of year is stressful and dangerous due to the use of fireworks. To make sure your pet stays as calm as possible, take these precautions.

Leave your pets at home and indoors because the noise of the fireworks could cause anxiety, fear and a desire to flee.

Keep pets in a lit, cool, calm closed room with familiar sounds and chew toys that will help to distract and make the animal feel safe.

Identification tags and microchips are a must in case the pet escapes. This will help to reunite the pet and the owners quickly and effectively.

The Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society is helping relieve overcrowded conditions in the Albuquerque Animal Shelters by accepting cats.  The public has been asked to start adopting cats due to hoarding cases in which 20 cats were confiscated from a home.

The animal shelters in Albuquerque are housing more than 550 cats, Barbara Bruin said.  

“We are barely keeping up,” Bruin said. “We were asked if we’ll have to start euthanizing for space and I said, ‘Not if I can help it.’”

“Santa Feans love their companion animals,” Martin said. “If anyone has been thinking of adopting, now is the time. We have to find homes for these beautiful cats, who all deserve a second chance.”

The Santa Fe Animal Shelter will cut the cost of the felines to $20 starting October 15, 2011.

For more information visit www.sfhumanesociety.org.