A girl who prayed for more than a year she would find a stray dog to take care of had her dream come true while on vacation when she helped a lost pooch and later adopted it. Self-confessed animal lover Zara Mayhew, 10, had hoped for a lost dog to turn up in her family’s yard in Linthicum, Maryland, so she could take care of it. Months later when Zara and her sisters - Odelia, 13, Aviela, 11, Chasia, 8, and Liora, 5 - went with family on vacation to a lake in Roxboro, North Carolina, the unthinkable happened. Having been at the house for no more than 10 minutes, the girls discovered a sweet foxhound which they dubbed Lucy. Mom, Sarah, 39, told the girls Lucy was likely owned by someone nearby - but day after day, she kept coming back. During that time, the girls played with Lucy, cleaned ticks off her, and, having decided she must be lost, joined local Facebook groups in the hope of finding her owners. Having had no luck, the Mayhew family eventually took the dog to a local vet, who was unable to find a microchip. When they returned to the house, however, Lucy disappeared and never returned. The girls were devastated, Sarah said, and after many tears and explanations that she must have gone home to her actual owners, the family headed back to Maryland. But then, one day, as Sarah checked Facebook, she came across a post by one of the local pounds she had followed in search of Lucy’s owners - and they had Lucy. Sarah immediately called the pound, which informed her no owners had come forward, so she and the kids took a long day trip back to the lake to adopt the dog.