Mom Surprises Son with Puppy They Found and Surrendered to Their Local Animal Control (Exclusive)

Bingo has a new home thanks to a doorbell camera app, an animal-loving mother and son — and fate

• Amber Pudik and her son were enjoying a quiet night when they heard about strays roaming their neighborhood

• The two managed to get the dogs into their fenced-in yard, which led to them spending the weekend with the pups before turning them over to animal control

• Pudik tells PEOPLE how she pulled off an unforgettable surprise for her little boy

Amber Pudik got the opportunity to surprise her son with an unforgettable moment.

The mom tells PEOPLE that she and her son were home when they saw posts in their doorbell camera's app about stray dogs roaming around their neighborhood.

"My son and I ran outside to see if they were still there, because I saw that it was the name of our street that somebody posted. So we go outside and they came running up to my son," Pudik recalls.

Both dogs were younger Blue Heelers. Mom and son worked to get them into their fenced-in backyard so they'd be safe during the search for their owners.

"They just followed me to my backyard. It was crazy. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy," Pudik shares.

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Related: Loving Stray Dog Steps in as Surrogate Mom for Hungry, Abandoned Puppies at Texas Shelter

"I immediately posted to a bunch of different local Facebook groups for lost pets, as well as one for our town," she continues. "I was posting to see if anybody recognized the dogs and then somebody from a local animal rescue in town reached out to me. They said that they had a microchip reader, so they actually came over within like 30 minutes of me finding the dogs to scan them for microchips — and they were not chipped."

Because their local animal control, Illinois' Tazewell County, was closed for the weekend, the dogs stayed with Pudik and her family.

"On Monday, we took them to animal control, where they have a five-day stray hold. I kept checking in on them to see if they were doing okay and find out if anybody had reached out. [The animal control] posted on their Facebook group in addition to the several I posted in. Despite all that, nobody ever reached out," Pudik says.

"We found out that [one] dog actually ended up having parvovirus, which can be dangerous, so he had to spend about a week-and-a-half at the animal hospital being treated for that. Luckily, he's doing so much better now," she says.

Because of that dog's diagnosis, both dogs had to be quarantined before they could be adopted. It was another week before Pudik could set her plan in action.

"It was really hard giving them up in the first place because we'd already gotten attached to them over the weekend, because you're taking care of them constantly," Pudik says.

"My son got super attached, as did I. I'm an animal lover, so it was really hard. That morning, my son was getting ready for school and before he got on the bus, he gave [the dogs] big hugs and was teary-eyed as he was walking down to the bus stop. When animal control picked the dogs up from me, I burst out into tears."

Pudik became friendly with the kennel manager at animal control as she realized what she felt called to do.

"I talked to my husband because he was out of town for this whole situation and I said, 'Well I think we might need to adopt him.' They determined they were going to adopt them out [separately] because they deemed them not a bonded pair," Pudik explains. "I was like, 'We can handle one more dog,' in addition to our two."

Pudik's husband agreed, presenting her with the opportunity to surprise their son with the dog one day.

"My son was so surprised. He could not believe it at first. He thought we got rid of our other dog in place of this dog, because he's like, 'Where's Ranger?' " she says with a laugh.

"It was probably the best surprise ever that everyone was staying. And I think that he will remember this forever because I mean, he was just in complete shock. He never thought that we were gonna adopt the dog," Pudik says.

Bingo, as they named him, has been a "perfect" fit for the family, getting along with the other dogs — Nash, their Golden Retriever, and Ranger, their Labrador Retriever — as well. Another surprise for the family? Their story going viral when Pudik shared it on TikTok.

"I was contemplating not even posting it, because this was such a overwhelming and crazy quick experience," Pudik says. "I thought I'd just see how my son reacts because I wasn't sure what his reaction was going to be. I ended up posting it and the views just keep climbing. It's kind of amazing the response that it's gotten — everybody has been so positive and everybody's offering advice on this breed of dog, a Blue Heeler. There's been a lot of positive reinforcements saying that I made the right decision by adopting from animal control. That's been cool."

Pudik hopes the video will inspire others to adopt as well, noting, "there are so many dogs available right now."

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