"He escaped death," new owner Jaime Magaña said.
On Friday, the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter signed over adoption papers to Magaña, a building-restoration supervisor from Chino who had driven his company pickup 110 miles on a 95-degree day before getting a feeling that something might be horribly wrong under the hood.
Magaña, 52, said he parked at McDonald's in San Clemente, turned off the ignition, still felt movement, stepped out to investigate and feared the worst upon realizing that a hidden hitchhiker had been riding up front.
"I didn't want to open the hood," Magaña recalled. "He was next to the pulleys and the belts. Just a little move over to that side and he would have been chopped on those belts."
The year-old Keeshond/Tibetan spaniel mix had survived the entire morning cramped inside the hot engine. Fresh air from the fan may have saved him, authorities said.
Magaña, who said he recognized the dog from seeing it in his neighborhood a couple of days earlier, was in shock but ecstatic as he gently pulled him out from under the hood. The dog was uninjured and seemed fine except for a terrible thirst that Magaña quickly quenched.
He called the authorities. Shelter officials, marveling that the dog had come through the ordeal unfazed, nicknamed him Chevy.
Chevy went up for adoption after the San Clemente/Dana Point shelter contacted a shelter in the Chino area to put out word of a missing dog; no owner came forward.
On Friday, it was smiles all around as Magaña was awarded his new companion, known henceforth as Houdini.
"It's a happy ending," said Kim Cholodenko, the shelter's general manager.
Magaña and animal-control officials who inspected the truck surmised the dog had climbed into the engine compartment through an opening above the left front wheel and got stuck. Luckily there was just enough space for him to emerge unscathed.
The shelter screened an undisclosed number of adoption applicants. The dog's story had spread nationwide, so interest was high.
Cholodenko said it was clear that the Magaña family would make an excellent match after Magaña and his wife, Isabel, visited Saturday with their dogs Dexter and Dakota.
"I couldn't just let him go," Magaña said of Houdini. "I have two dogs, but after what we went through with this, it has to be ours."
(OC Register - Oct 19, 2012)
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