Shelter Worker Finds Dog Standing On Top Of Her Kennel And Realizes She’s Houdini Reincarnated
“We think she is amazing, clearly a problem solver.”
Published on Aug 19, 2026 at 2:36 PM
When the staff at Richmond Animal Care & Control walked into the shelter one day, they had to do a double take.
A 5-year-old husky named Maya wasn’t inside her kennel, where they expected her to be. Instead, she was standing on top of it.
Somehow, the agile dog had scaled the walls of her kennel, squeezed through a hole near the wall and made herself comfortable on the kennel’s wire cover.
“We were dying laughing and then really wondered how she managed it,” Christie Peters, director of Richmond Animal Care & Control, told The Dodo.
The shelter shared the hilarious moment in a Facebook post, joking that Maya was “casually hanging out like she’d paid rent, having expertly escaped her covered kennel in true husky fashion.”
“No panic, no destruction,” the staff wrote on Facebook. “Just a fluffy escape artist reminding everyone that locks are merely puzzles.”
For the staff who know Maya’s story, her antics were especially heartwarming.
Just a few months earlier, in May, animal control officers rescued Maya from a yard in Richmond, Virginia. At the time, she was in rough shape, with a chain wrapped twice around her neck.
“The chain had embedded in her neck, causing much pain and discomfort,” Peters said.
Despite everything she’s endured, Maya has not let her past define her. Peters describes her as a “very exuberant” dog who “loves life and everyone in it.”
“She is such a happy-go-lucky dog,” Peters added.
Maya’s joyful spirit has kept the shelter staff smiling — and sometimes scrambling to figure out how to keep her secure. After her latest escape efforts, the shelter staff had to “retrofit and clip the back of her covered kennel to be flush with the wall,” according to Peters.
Since her kennel-hopping stunt, Maya has moved into a foster home, where she seems much more comfortable and no longer feels the need to plot an escape. But everyone is hoping her next move will be into a forever home.
“We think she is amazing, clearly a problem solver,” Peters said. “We hope someone will adopt her and think the same!”
If you’re interested in adopting Maya, you can learn more on Richmond Animal Care & Control’s website.