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“I saw the video on Facebook and that was all it took,” Power said. “My son was driving to visit me so I sent him and text and said, ‘You want to drive to Cali?’ and he replied, ‘What LOL.’”

Power’s son, Channing, 21, and her husband, Dan Marshall, and his 14-year-old daughter, Emma, all agreed to make the approximately 16-hour drive to Sacramento.

The family hopped in their truck and drove overnight, arriving in Sacramento the morning of June 3, about 20 minutes before the shelter opened.

The family looked at several dogs before being introduced by a shelter employee to a 2-year-old pit bull named Joyce.

“You could tell she was a very smart girl,” Power said of the dog they ultimately adopted. “She was a sweetie right from the beginning.”

Power and her family drove back to British Columbia with the dog snuggled on their laps, she said.

They renamed the dog Sophie because her “beautiful eyes” reminded them of the actress Sophia Loren.

\"PHOTO:
Courtesy Paula Power
PHOTO: Paula Power and her family drove around 16 hours from Canada to California to adopt a 2-year-old pit bull they named Sophie.
>

“We considered Vegas because we took a gamble and it paid off big, but she didn’t respond to Vegas,” Power said. “We said, ‘Sophie,’ and she perked right up and responded.”

Bobby Mann, a spokesperson for the shelter, said Power and her family played a big role in helping the shelter, which takes in 11,000 dogs and cats annually, reduce its animal population.

“This family walked the walk and talked the talk and drove all the way down and found a new family member and took her back home,” he told ABC News. “We couldn’t be more excited.”

Power is now looking into getting Sophie trained as a service dog for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

\"She is confident and calm and could make a big difference in [people's] lives,\" Power said.

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