A woman went on a 'wild goose chase' for hours at an Atlanta airport to find the chihuahua that had been separated from its owner and lost for 3 weeks

• Paula Camila Rodriguez was separated from her dog, Maia, on Aug. 18 at an Atlanta airport.
• One woman offered to help find the dog while Rodriguez was back home in the Dominican Republic.

A woman found the missing Chihuahua, who was lost for three weeks after being separated from her owner at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, on Saturday.

Robin Allgood, who lives south of Atlanta, Georgia, never met Paula Camila Rodriguez, a 25-year-old from the Dominican Republic.

But those close to Allgood know that she has a passion for dogs and spends much of her time in retirement reuniting lost pets to their owners as a pet recovery specialist.

So friends quickly began tagging Allgood on social media about Rodriguez's lost Chihuahua mix, Maia.

Rodriguez told The Washington Post that she had been separated from her dog at the Atlanta airport on August 18 due to issues with her visa that forced her to spend a night at the airport detention facility. A Delta staff told Rodriguez that Maia would be safely kept at a pet facility.

However, Rodriguez returned to her home in the Dominican Republic without her dog. Delta staff later told her that her dog escaped her kennel.

Delta Airlines at one point offered her $1,800 in light of Rodriguez's lost dog, according to CBS News correspondent David Begnaud. Rodriguez's attorney called Delta's offer an "insult," Begnaud reported.

A Delta spokesperson previously told Insider that the $1,800 payment was not an "offer of compensation."

Allgood quickly reached out to Rodriguez on social media.

"I will not charge you anything. I will go put signs up. I'll pass flyers out," Allgood recalled the messages to Rodriguez in an interview with Insider. "I will be you in Georgia because you're not here. I promise you I'll find your dog. I promise you."

On Saturday morning, Allgood made good on that promise.

Around 2:30 a.m., Allgood was woken up by a call about a sighting of a small black Chihuahua. The tip came from an employee at FedEx, which has a facility near Hartsfield-Jackson airport — the last place Rodriguez was with her dog.

According to Allgood, the employee saw the flyers she had placed and recognized Maia. He tried to catch the dog but she ran away. Several other people had spotted Maia that week, he told Allgood.

"I jumped out of the bed. I threw on some clothes. I don't even know if I brushed my teeth," Allgood told Insider. "But I took off to the airport and tried to get into FedEx's area."

From then on, Allgood was led on a five-hour "wild goose chase between Delta and FedEx," according to an update on Facebook, where Allgood and almost 600 members supported the search efforts for the missing dog.

According to Allgood, a manager at the FedEx facility said that she would have to have a Delta employee escort her onto the property.

Allgood told Insider that Delta initially "refused to help."

"They said they needed a picture of proof that the dog was her before they could do anything," she said.

Previously, Rodriguez told Allgood that Delta had sent her a message stating that the airline had stopped the search about a week after Maia went missing because it no longer believed the dog was on airport property.

In an email to Insider, a Delta spokesperson said that the airline teams conducted "around-the-clock visual searches of the airfield as conditions allowed."

"Delta teams engaged our colleagues throughout the Hartsfield-Jackson airport community when searches first began and as we followed every lead presented since then," the statement said.

It's unclear how long Delta conducted the searches. The spokesperson could not provide further information.

Allgood said that she drove back and forth between Delta Airlines and FedEx that Saturday, having to go through airport traffic and parking every time.

She was also on a time crunch. Allgood and her family had plans that day to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight to Hawaii.

But by 7 a.m., she realized that she was not going to make the trip.

"I called Eric in tears and as usual he proved the loving supporting husband he is, he told me to quit worrying about the flight … just stay and find Maia," Allgood wrote on Facebook.

Without security clearance to enter FedEx, Allgood decided to stake out the facility driving around the area in circles.

"I probably put 300 miles on my van riding the inner loop road in front of FedEx," she wrote on Facebook. "I circled and circled that FedEx facility. I parked and watched with binoculars a few times hoping to see her move around. I rode the entire day hoping to get a glimpse of Maia and watching for a FedEx employee."

Around 3 p.m., she caught up with one FedEx employee at the parking lot and asked him to keep an eye out for the dog.

Two hours later, she received a call. The worker spotted Maia hiding somewhere near the FedEx facility underneath a rack used to move large cargo.

After going through another ordeal of trying to enlist the help of airport security, Allgood was eventually led to the area where Maia was hiding.

One FedEx worker called another employee. Soon, a whole team of people from Delta and FedEx arrived, according to Allgood.

"This turned into a scene," she wrote on Facebook. "Numerous people started showing up from air operations, Delta, and the wonderful FedEx employees who were all such a huge help. There were trucks parked all around with red and blue lights flashing, flashlights being pointed towards her."

Allgood sensed that she would never be able to lure Maia, who is "skittish," out from under the rack with all the surrounding activity.

Employees started setting up barricades; a wildlife biologist at the scene was making attempts to grab the dog with a net; and people were discussing how to get Maia out.

Amid the commotion, Allgood said at one point, she quietly walked to the rack that was about 10 inches off the floor, got on her back, and "started scooting under it."

"I got to her, and she still hadn't noticed I was behind her," Allgood wrote on Facebook. "I took a deep breath and just grabbed her around the waist without hesitating. The next thing I hear is someone yell Robin's got her!!!!"

Maia was taken to a local vet to be examined and received IV fluids as a precaution, Allgood told Insider.

"She is actually doing pretty phenomenal for what she's been through," Allgood said.

The Delta spokesperson told Insider that the airline will "facilitate" how Rodriguez wants to be reunited with her dog.

Rodriguez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"This is a passion," Allgood said of her volunteer efforts to recover lost pets. "I feel like it's a calling from God that he's laid in my heart. I love dogs."