MOUNT VERNON, Va. (AP) — George Washington never did cut down the cherry tree, despite the famous story to the contrary, but he did pack away quite a few bottles of the fruit at his Mount Vernon home.

Dozens of bottles of cherries and berries — impossibly preserved in storage pits uncovered from the cellar of his mansion on the banks of the Potomac River — were discovered during an archaeological dig connected to a restoration project.

Jason Boroughs, Mount Vernon’s principal archaeologist, said the discovery of so much perfectly preserved food from more than 250 years ago is essentially unprecedented.

“Finding what is essentially fresh fruit, 250 years later, is pretty spectacular,” Boroughs said in an interview. “All the stars sort of have to align in the right manner for that to happen. ”

Whole pieces of fruit, recognizable as cherries, were found in some of the bottles. Other bottles held what appear to be gooseberries or currants, though testing is underway to confirm that.

Mount Vernon is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is conducting DNA testing on the fruit. They are also examining more than 50 cherry pits recovered from the bottles to see if any of them can be planted.

Records at Mount Vernon show that George and Martha Washington were fond of cherries, at least when mixed with brandy. Martha Washington’s recipe for a “cherry bounce” cocktail survives, and Washington wrote that he took a canteen of cherry bounce with him on a trip across the Alleghenies in 1784.

These cherries, though, were most likely bottled to be eaten simply as cherries, Boroughs said.

The quality of the preservation reflect a high caliber of work. Slaves ran the plantation’s kitchen. The kitchen was overseen by an enslaved woman named Doll, who came to Mount Vernon in 1758 with Martha Washington, according to the estate.

“The enslaved folks who were taking care of the trees, picking the fruit, working in the kitchen, those would have been the folks that probably would have overseen and done this process,” Boroughs said. “It’s a highly skilled process. Otherwise they just wouldn’t have survived this way.”

The bottles were found only because Mount Vernon is doing a $40 million revitalization project of the mansion that they expect to be completed by the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.

“When we do archaeology, it’s destructive,” Boroughs said. “So unless we have a reason to disturb those resources, we tend not to.”

“In this case, because of these needed structural repairs to the mansion, the ground was going to be disturbed. So we looked there first,” he continued. “We didn’t expect to find all this.”

They know the bottles predate 1775 because that’s when an expansion of the mansion led to the area being covered over with a brick floor.

Mount Vernon announced back in April, at the start of its archaeological work, that it had found two bottles. As the dig continued, the number increased to 35 in six distinct storage pits. Six of the bottles were broken, with the other 19 intact. Twelve held cherries, 16 held the other berries believed to be currants and gooseberries, and one larger bottle held both cherries and other berries.

Boroughs believes they have now uncovered all the cherries and berries that survived.

“There is a lot of information that we’re excited to get from these bottles,” he said.

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) — A malfunctioning steam room at a YMCA in Rhode Island pumped out so much steam that it triggered an a sprinkler system alarm on Saturday morning, prompting an evacuation.

In a statement, the Middletown Police Department said officials rushed to the Newport County YMCA in Middletown around 9 a.m. for a possible explosion but later learned an excessive amount of steam had set off the building’s emergency sprinkler system.

A 58-year-old woman was hurt but officials said it was a minor injury. The YMCA would remain closed Saturday, police said.

BOSTON (AP) — Rhiannan Iffland stepped to the edge of a platform nearly seven stories above Boston Harbor, thousands of cheering fans packed onto docks, roofs and sidewalks below, and soared through the air with the city’s skyline disappearing behind her as she rocketed toward the tea-brown water.

All in a day’s work for one of the world’s elite participants in cliff diving — a sport in which sometimes the precipice isn’t a cliff at all. Iffland, from Australia, said the competition among cliff divers jumping from the Institute of Contemporary Art during a Saturday contest in Boston was fierce.

“I know the pressure’s coming — and the young girls are diving super well,” Iffland said after winning the women’s section.

Iffland’s victory was part of cliff diving’s marquee event, which came to the hub of New England as the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series made the 100th stop in its history. Participants plunged from up to 90 feet (27 meters) in the air from the waterfront art museum into the chilly harbor below. British diver Aidan Heslop won the men’s competition and said, “We’ve all got our work cut out for us” for the rest of the series.

Boston is the only U.S. stop this year. The series wraps up in Sydney, Australia, in November.

Cliff diving attracts a special kind of athlete, especially when winning means leaping from an art museum into potentially frigid waters below, organizers said.

“These epic athletes train super hard to make sure every leap, somersault, twist and entry is perfect,” organizers said in a statement.

Practice and early competition rounds were held Friday. Judges scores Saturday’s competitive round based on the divers’ form and technique. Two dozen people competed.

It was the third straight year that the popular spectator event has come to Boston. Organizers said it drew 45,000 people for the weekend.

The art museum said in a statement that the event was a visually stunning opportunity for the public and a chance for the athletes to earn “crucial championship points along the way based on their final event positions.”

___

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.

A YouTuber who specializes in “car shenanigans” is facing federal charges after authorities said he directed a video in which two people in a helicopter blasted fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini from above.

Alex Choi, 24, is charged with causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. If convicted, Choi faces a maximum of ten years in federal prison.

Prosecutors allege that Choi posted a video last July, made without filming permits, entitled “Destroying a Lamborghini with Fireworks.” The video has since been taken down but authorities said it shows Choi pressing a “fire missiles” button while two women on board a helicopter shoot fireworks at the sports car as it races across a desert landscape.

Officials believe the video was taken on July 4, 2023, at the El Mirage Dry Lake Bed in rural San Bernardino County, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Choi did not immediately respond to a request for comment that The Associated Press sent him via Instagram, nor to an email sent to his talent agency.

Choi, who has over a million followers on Instagram and nearly that number on YouTube, entertains his audience with what he calls “the greatest car shenanigans.” Other stunts of his include filming his passengers as he rapidly accelerates and taking a Lamborghini through a gas station car wash.

A spokesperson from the Department of Justice said that Choi appeared in court on Thursday and a federal magistrate judge ordered him released on $50,000 bond. His arraignment is scheduled for July 2. No plea was taken.

GLEN ROSE, Texas (AP) — A Texas family got a brief scare when a nibble from a giraffe turned a 2-year-old’s safari visit into an airborne adventure.

Paisley Toten was in the bed of a pickup truck on June 1 when her family drove through the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, where visitors can see exotic animals such as zebras, giraffes and sable antelope, and feed some of them from their car.

The family had stopped to feed a giraffe when it grabbed Paisley’s shirt with its mouth and lifted her several feet. Paisley’s mother was in the pickup bed with her and shouted, prompting the giraffe to drop the toddler into her arms unhurt. Video of the encounter taken from the car behind went viral. The girl’s family also shot their own video.

“Paisley was holding the bag and the giraffe went to go get the bag, not get her, but ended up getting her shirt too and picking her up,” Jason Toten, the girl’s father, told television station KWTX.

“My heart stopped, my stomach dropped … it scared me,” Toten said.

The family then took the girl to the shop and bought her a toy giraffe.

Park rules when the family visited allowed riding in an open truck bed as long as an adult was riding with any children. The park on Thursday changed its safety rules to require everyone to stay inside their vehicles with doors closed.

SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Animal control officers in Michigan are struggling to capture an elusive peacock that has been on the loose for at least two days.

A student discovered the peacock on Monday as he was driving to Valley Lutheran High School in Saginaw County, MLive.com reported. Rachel Horton, director of the Saginaw County Animal Care and Control Center, said the student decided to bring the peacock with him to school and try to find the owner but the peacock got away, MLive.com reported.

Animal control officers almost captured it Tuesday morning, but it escaped again, leaving the officers with scratches and “a tree-climbing experience that we may need to train on in the future,” Horton said.

The center is now seeking donations to buy a $150 animal capture net.

Citizens have been trying to capture the bird as well, to no avail, Horton said.

The identity of the peacock’s owner remains a mystery, she said.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A human skull padlocked to an exercise dumbbell has been fished out of a New Orleans waterway, leaving police with a mystery on their hands.

The skull was found earlier this month by a man using a red rope and a magnet the size of a hockey puck on a bridge to pull things out of the water below, police said in a report.

The report was recently released and obtained by The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. The fisherman also found a handgun and a gun barrel in the water on May 18, police said.

The 15-pound (6.8 kilogram) dumbbell was padlocked around the skull, which was “fully decomposed, lacking a jaw or the top row of teeth,” according to the report.

The magnet fisherman flagged down a passing police officer after making the find off the Bayou St. John Bridge.

New Orleans police did not have any further updates on the case this week, and the coroner did not say whether he had confirmed the victim’s identity, the newspaper reported.

Police have been seeking tips from the public as they investigate the case.

CARTHAGE, Mo. (AP) — Sam Butcher, the artist who created the Precious Moments figurines depicting angelic teardrop-eyed children, has died. He was 85.

The company said in a Facebook post that he died early Monday surrounded by family. It said his life’s mission was “to share God’s gift of love with the world.” No details about his cause of death were provided.

Some of the Christian-themed figurines feature Bible verses or children praying. Fans have collections numbering in the hundreds, while critics deride them as kitsch.

Butcher’s childhood love of illustrating got a wider audience when he began telling Bible stories on a children’s ministry television show while he drew. That experience led to him cofounding a business in 1974 named Jonathan & David after the biblical figures, according to his online obituary.

Early offerings included greeting cards. And within a few years, those drawings were transformed into porcelain figurines.

Thousands of designs have been produced over the decades, and fans of his work flock each year to the Precious Moments Inspiration Park and Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri.

The cornerstone of the pastel-painted, non-denominational oasis is the chapel, which Butcher was inspired to build by a 1983 trip to the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It includes 84 Biblical murals that cover more than 5,000 square feet.

SPENCER, Mass. (AP) — Three little piggies went to a yoga class.

Their human companions had a blast.

Wilbur, Charlotte and Bluey fit right into a growing trend of yoga with animals, adding some fun to the usual physical and mental wellness exercises at a class in central Massachusetts.

Darting and strolling among the yoginis making downward dog, crow and cobra poses, the piglets also dug up a backyard with their soft pink snouts as two rabbits and a goat named Munchie searched for the tastiest shoots.

The experience was well worth a nearly two-hour drive to the town of Spencer for retired New Hampshire dentist Stacey Delbridge and her daughter.

“The best thing about the piglet yoga was, of course, the piglets and how cute they are,” Delbridge said with a jubilant smile. “They were funny, you know. Just when you were getting to a point where you needed a break, you had a great visitor come see you, and you could quit without looking like a quitter. Yeah. They’re adorable.”

Beyond Yoga & Wellness owner Ashley Bousquet teaches piglet yoga, and says there is such demand that online registrations typically sell out within hours.

The classes begin with Bousquet inviting participants not to fret over interrupting their flows to interact with the piglets, who come from a friend’s farm.

“During the class you have piglets causing mischief and running on you, on top of you or cuddling with you,” Bousquet said. “It’s super cute.”

Amy Finkel brought her two daughters with her, smiling broadly while snapping photos of piglets as the girls hugged a rabbit.

“Seeing them so joyful and happy” was the high point, she said. The low point? “When it was over, because it just seemed to go so quickly.”

Practicing yoga with animals can produce unexpected benefits. If done with shelter animals, it may even encourage adoptions, said Rebecca Purchase of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell.

“Is yoga stressful to animals that join? It can be if it’s not the right animal,” Purchase said. “But for animals that really thrive being around people and getting to socialize with them, it absolutely can be a benefit.”

Finkel is a big fan of animal yoga — she said it helped keep her mind from wandering. “I’m really focused on to what’s going on presently around me. And I think in today’s day and age, that’s very hard to do.”

“I just wanted to sit with them,” Delbridge said. “I could have skipped yoga and gone just piglet. All piglet.”

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana judge who declared that “tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches” has cleared the way for the opening of a new restaurant, delighting a restauranteur following a legal battle.

Martin Quintana, 53, has been trying for about three years to open his second The Famous Taco location in Fort Wayne, a city about 120 miles (190 kilometers) northeast of Indianapolis.

But the initial written commitment for the development at a plaza Quintana owns limits the business to “a sandwich bar-style restaurant whose primary business is to sell ‘made-to-order’ or ‘subway-style’ sandwiches.”

Quintana said the nearby Covington Creek Association contacted him to say that his The Famous Taco proposal “somehow ran afoul” to that commitment.

He sued the Fort Wayne Plan Commission in December 2022 after it denied his proposed amendment that would specifically allow his restaurant to offer made-to-order tacos, burritos and other Mexican-style food items, The Journal Gazette reported.

Allen Superior Court Judge Craig Bobay ruled Monday that the plan commission acted correctly when it denied Quintan’s proposed amendment. But the judge also found that his request was not needed and he found that the original commitment allows restaurants like the proposed The Famous Taco.

“The Court agrees with Quintana that tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches, and the original Written Commitment does not restrict potential restaurants to only American cuisine-style sandwiches,” Bobay wrote.

Quintana said Thursday he is relieved the legal fight is over, and he is looking forward to opening his second The Famous Taco restaurant in Fort Wayne, which is Indiana’s second-most populous city with about 270,000 residents.

“I’m glad this thing is over. We are happy. When you have a decision like this the only thing you can be is happy. We’re excited,” he told The Associated Press.

Quintana said he came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1988, working first as a farm worker in California picking grapes, olives and kiwi fruit before entering the restaurant business in Michigan before moving to Chicago and finally Fort Wayne in 2001. He also operates a second restaurant in the city.

Quintana said his new family-owned The Famous Taco restaurant should open in two or three months. He said that like his other The Famous Taco location that opened nearly seven years ago, customers will be able choose their favored toppings for tacos, burritos or tortas assembled by eatery staff.

“You know, that’s a sandwich, that’s bread. That’s a sandwich,” he said of tortas. “We go through a lot of those.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A candidate for West Virginia secretary of state said he has been hospitalized for copperhead snake bites sustained while removing election campaign signs.

Doug Skaff said he was bitten in the left leg and the right foot Wednesday near U.S. Route 119 in Danville, news outlets reported.

Skaff told West Virginia radio network MetroNews that passersby called for medical assistance. The South Charleston resident said he expects to be in a hospital in Charleston for a few days.

Skaff ran in the secretary of state’s race as a Republican on Tuesday. In unofficial returns, Skaff finished second to Kris Warner.

Skaff resigned his House of Delegates seat from Kanawha County last September after stepping down as the chamber’s Democratic leader in August. He announced in October that he was switching to the GOP and running for secretary of state.

Skaff served in the House from 2009 to 2014 and was elected to the chamber again in 2018. He is president of HD Media, which owns the Charleston Gazette-Mail and several other state newspapers.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado woman’s attempt to steal a pickup truck — shortly after she was released from jail on a car theft charge — was thwarted not by officers, nor the truck’s owners, but by her inability to drive a stick shift, Boulder Police said.

The woman had been released from jail on May 3 after being accused of stealing a car a day earlier, and walked down the road until she spotted a pickup truck with the keys inside. She then started the pickup, but apparently discovered she couldn’t manage the manual transmission, so she got out and walked away, leaving the truck to roll forward and strike a fire hydrant, police said.

The woman was arrested and now has a May 30 court date on new charges of motor vehicle theft, careless driving, driving without a license and failing to report the crash. The truck was returned to its owner, police said.

Police titled a social media post about the case “Stick Shift FTW,” which is an acronym for “for the win.”

MIAMI (AP) — Airport security officers in Miami found a slithering surprise last week — a bag of snakes hidden in a passenger’s pants.

According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger’s trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.

The post included a photo of two small snakes that were found in what appeared to be a sunglasses bag.

TSA said the snakes were turned over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

NORTH BEND, Wash. (AP) — It was an unusual wildlife sighting Sunday when four zebras escaped from their trailer and galloped into a Washington neighborhood.

Three of the four black-and-white striped animals were quickly captured, but the fate of the fourth wasn’t immediately known Monday, Washington State Patrol Trooper Rick Johnson said.

The zebras were being transported from Washington to Montana when the driver took the Interstate 90 exit for North Bend, located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Seattle, to secure the trailer.

That’s when the the zebras bolted.

Witness Dan Barnett of North Bent told KING-TV of Seattle that he was in “disbelief,” when he saw the zebras eating grass off the side of the offramp.

He and other drivers helped protect the zebras from the busy nearby interstate, as drivers on the offramp pulled over to “make a makeshift fence” to block the animals from the highway, Barnett said.

The zebras then began heading toward town, trotting past brunch patrons at a restaurant near the interstate exit. Soon after, three of the AWOL zebras were in Whitney Blomquist’s backyard.

“I called someone and was like, ‘So I found the missing zebras, they’re in my yard. Yeah – not sure what to do,’” Blomquist said.

The zebras then ran to a neighboring yard, where two were captured with the help of rodeo professionals. The third, the baby of the herd, was corralled later.

Johnson posted photos of the loose zebras on the social platform X. “This is a first for me and all @wastatepatrol troopers involved,” he wrote. “Crazy!”

LEBANON, Ind. (AP) — A central Indiana man who won a primary election for a township board position while charged with killing his estranged wife has been found guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

A Boone County jury convicted Andrew Wilhoite, 41, of Lebanon on Thursday, local news outlets reported.

Wilhoite was charged with murder in the death of his wife, 41-year-old Elizabeth “Nikki” Wilhoite, who was reported missing by coworkers on March 25, 2022, when she did not show up for work. Her body was found in a creek near her home the next day.

She had filed for divorce on March 17 and had recently finished chemotherapy treatments for cancer.

Wilhoite told police he struck his wife with a flowerpot during an argument, then dumped her body in the creek.

He faces 10 to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 4.

One of his attorneys, Jennifer Lukemeyer, said she had no comment on the verdict.

Wilhoite was one of three Republican candidates who advanced in a 2022 primary for a township board position before later withdrawing from the race. He received 60 of the 276 total votes for Republicans for three positions on the Clinton Township Board, Boone County election results showed. The race drew only three candidates.

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of young dancers in white tutus and tightly coiffed hair gathered in New York’s Plaza Hotel on Wednesday to break the world record for dancing on pointe in one place.

The spectacle was organized by Youth America Grand Prix, a ballet scholarship program that is celebrating its 25th anniversary with three nights of performances at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The dancers included students aged 9 to 19 who are competing for scholarships as well as professional dancers who are alums of the program.

Tchaikovsky music played as the ballerinas stood on tiptoes and switched their weight rapidly from one foot to the other — a step called bourrée — for a full minute.

Tina Shi, an adjudicator for Guinness World Records, announced the results: “353, that is a new Guinness world record! Congratulations!”

The New York-based Youth America Grand Prix has operated the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition since 1999.

The previous record for ballerinas on pointe en masse was 306.

An escaped mountain goat that somehow got stuck under a Kansas City bridge has survived a rocky rescue effort and now may be reunited with the owners who suspect he was stolen from their farm two months ago.

“It’s the story that captured the hearts of Kansas City,” said Tori Fugate, of the KC Pet Project, a nonprofit that handles animal control for the city and operates shelters. “Forget a solar eclipse. We were on goat watch.”

After Monday’s eclipse, people spotted the animal, believed to be a missing goat named Chug, hopping around on the pillars that support the bridge, high above the ground below.

Hoping to guide it to safety, a driver managed to get a rope around the goat’s neck, but that only added to the danger, said Fugate. When firefighters tried to rappel over the side of the bridge to capture the goat, he spooked and tried to jump to the next platform. But his hooves slipped and the rope caught, causing the goat to hang from his neck, not moving.

Firefighters managed to undo a snag in the rope, creating slack in the line. The goat then fell as much as 15 feet (4.5 meters) to the ground, landing in a spot where crews had added padding in an attempt to soften the impact, Fugate said.

A waiting veterinarian sedated the goat and crews carried him in a sling to the top of a rocky hill, where firefighters gave him oxygen. Then he perked up and was taken for X-rays, Fugate said.

“He miraculously has no broken bones,” Fugate said. The goat had been clambering along bridge supports that are as much as 80 feet (24 meters) above the ground, a fall he wouldn’t have survived, she said.

She said this was just the latest part of the goat’s adventure. He entered the shelter as a stray on March 13, was dubbed Jeffrey and was adopted later that month. But he immediately jumped the fence at his new home, she said.

“Thanks to his media fame, yesterday we had somebody reach out and they said that he is very similar to their goat that went missing back in February,” she said.

The family lives two hours away and plans to came to come to the shelter Wednesday to confirm he is their stolen goat, named Chug. If he is, they plan to bring him home with them, and the goat’s adoptive owners say that is OK with them.

“He seems to be very particular about his living situation,” Fugate said.

MARSHALL, Mich. (AP) — An animal a Michigan hunter thought was a big coyote when he shot it in January has been determined to be a gray wolf, the first time the species has been found in southern Michigan in more than a century, wildlife officials say.

The hunter shot the wolf in Calhoun County, in the southern reaches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, while taking part in legal coyote hunting accompanied by a guide, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources said.

The man “said he encountered what was initially believed to be a large coyote” but it weighed 84 pounds (38 kilograms), which is significantly more than the 25 pounds (11 kilograms) to 40 pounds (18 kilograms) that Eastern coyotes typically weigh, the DNR said.

“A series of genetic tests on the harvested animal confirmed that it was a gray wolf, a species not sighted in that part of Michigan since the likely extirpation of wolves from the state in the early part of the 20th century,” the agency said Wednesday.

Gray wolves are currently confined “almost exclusively” to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the DNR said. The few instances of wolves being present in the state’s Lower Peninsula in the past two decades have been in the Lower Peninsula’s northern areas, the agency added.

“This is an unusual case, and the DNR is actively delving into the matter to learn more about this particular animal’s origin,” Brian Roell, a DNR wildlife biologist who’s a large carnivore specialist, said in a news release. “While rare, instances of wolves traversing vast distances have been documented, including signs of wolves in recent decades in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.”

Roell said Friday that the DNR learned about the animal from social media posts in January touting it as “a world record coyote” but he said he was certain from photos posted online that it was a wolf. The agency obtained samples from the animal from a taxidermist soon afterward.

Roell said the DNR received genetic test results from two laboratories late last week confirming that it was a gray wolf and the agency seized the carcass from the taxidermist earlier this week.

“We seized all parts of the animal and I was told it would be in our diagnostic laboratory today,” he told The Associated Press.

Gray wolves are a protected species under the Endangered Species Act and they can be killed “only if they are a direct and immediate threat to human life,” Michigan’s DNR said.

Roell said the question of how the wolf ended up in southern Michigan remains under investigation by the DNR. He said he harbors “some doubt” that it ended up their naturally, noting that the area of Michigan where the animal was shot does not have habitat suitable for sustaining gray wolves.

“If this animal did indeed get naturally to Calhoun County it was likely just drifting, looking for others of its own kind,” he said.

HARPER WOODS, Mich. (AP) — A dog missing in California since the summer turned up more than 2,000 miles away in Michigan.

Police in Harper Woods, a Detroit suburb, responded to a call about a stray dog last week, picked up the terrier mix and contacted an animal welfare group.

Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society said it quickly discovered that the dog, named Mishka, had an identity chip implanted in her with information about her owner.

Mehrad Houman and his family live in San Diego but were in Minneapolis when the phone rang. He drove 10 hours to Michigan for a reunion with Mishka, the adoption group said on a Facebook post with pictures and video.

“This is a tale that Hollywood would love to tell,” the group said.

Harper Woods police confirmed its involvement Thursday. A message seeking additional comment was left for the animal organization.

Mishka had disappeared in July from Houman’s workplace.

“She was clean, well-fed. Whoever had her took good care of her,” said veterinarian Nancy Pillsbury, who examined the 3-year-old dog, gave her a rabies shot and cleared her to travel home to California.

“How she got here — that’s a story only Mishka knows,” Pillsbury told The Associated Press.