Animal Welfare director Danny Nevarez said, ‘It’s almost like he knew, he just started whimpering.’
The paper reported that Mr Vincent got Patch when his neighbour’s dog had puppies.
He told the paper, ‘He was the smallest, and I wanted one that could ride on my bike. The only hair I had was on my chin, which was called a patch. And he has a little white patch, so we were the patch brothers.’
Mr Vincent has no family in New Mexico and Patch was being cared for by Westside Animal Shelter while waiting for an adopter.
The animal shelter shared the reunion on their Facebook page, writing, ‘They were so happy to see each other and to say their goodbyes. It was an honour to make this veteran’s final wish come true.’
Since the post, they updated to reveal Patch has been adopted and will be moving to his new home soon.