If you’re a pet owner, you hope to never experience what Whitney Mercilus had to go through this weekend.

The former Illinois and current Houston Texans linebacker was without his two dogs, Rocky and Princess. They had apparently escaped when he let them loose in his yard while remodeling work to his Houston-area home was being redone.

He took to social media late on Thursday night to spread the word of his lost pets:

On Friday, the dogs were spotted Barrera family. Mercilus got tips that they were OK and that he’d update the large number of people who voice their well wishes on social media.

As it turned out, the Berrera family recently lost a dog of their own within the year and wanted to keep the dog. But because of the momentum the search gained on social media, word of Mercilus’ lost dogs reached the local news.

That’s when the Berrera family realized that they couldn’t keep the dogs.

“Last night I was watching the news…and I see a picture of those two dogs and him- I don’t know who he is. So I got up real quick and went downstairs and I called the number,” Barrera told the Houston Chronicle.

The two parties arranged a meeting, where Mercilus was reunited with his dogs. Mercilus offered the family four tickets to a future Texans game for their kind gesture:

Mercilus finished the regular season by winning the AFC Defensive Player of the Month award. His good fortune has apparently continued into the offseason.