It’s always a heartbreaking experience when a dog goes missing. You search everywhere, wondering if you’ll ever see your best friend again.
But it’s important to not give up hope: sometimes miracles happen, and dogs are found and reunited with their owners months or even years after disappearing.
That was the case recently, after one family pet, who had been missing for three years, unexpectedly returned home.
The Skelton family of Sugar Land, Texas loved their mixed-breed rescue dog, Daisy, and were left devastated in February 2019 when the pet escaped from the family’s home and disappeared without a trace.
“Our back gate was open,” owner Katrina Skelton told Click2Houston. “She and our other dog got out. We ended up finding our other dog on a website, but Daisy was nowhere to be found.”
Katrina says she rescued the dog when she was just 12 weeks old, calling Daisy her “first baby” since she was adopted before her children were born.
“She was the best dog ever,” Katrina wrote on Facebook. “She was gentle, loving, and patient. She was with us through 2 pregnancies, 2 toddlers, and 3 different homes. We were heartbroken when we lost her.”
It was a painful loss, and even as months and years passed by, Katrina held out hope that the dog could return home someday. Daisy was microchipped, and she hoped that someone would find Daisy and identify her as the owner.
“Over the past three years, I have looked at the microchip website to see if anyone had scanned her,” Katrina wrote. “We had no luck what so ever. I was always very hopeful she had found a loving home and was alive somewhere. The microchip website never updated that she had been scanned.”
But three years after Daisy went missing, her luck suddenly changed.
On January 2, a dog wandered into the backyard of Taylor Travis and Tiffany Clay in Marion, Indiana.
They took the dog in, and discovered she had a microchip. They had it scanned, and were stunned to see the dog came all the way from Texas.
They found out it was a now-7-year-old dog named Daisy, who had been missing from home for three years.
They contacted the Skelton family, who were stunned, believing Daisy to be deceased. While they were several states apart, they immediately made plans to meet up and reunite with their lost dog.
“I still can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ll believe it until I have her in my arms,” Katrina told Click2Houston after hearing the news.
Katrina and her husband made a 16-hour drive to Indianapolis that weekend, and were overjoyed to see Daisy again after so long.
“It means everything to us so they can be happy, because I’d want someone to bring my dog back,” Tiffany Clay told CBS 4 Indy about the reunion.
“We have hoped and prayed for the return of Daisy for 3 years,” Katrina wrote on Facebook. “Words cannot explain the excitement we have! I hope she remembers us.”
It isn’t clear how Daisy ended up in Indiana. Katrina told the Chronicle Tribune that Daisy appeared well cared for, so was probably being taken in by another family: “Someone is probably missing her,” she said.
Still, she was thrilled to see her long-lost, beloved dog again. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the reunion is that the dog will get to see her kids again. She says that her son Jackson is now 6-years-old, and after three years he’s still been calling Daisy “the puppy.”
Daisy is now back with her old family, and while Katrina writes that after all these years Daisy seemed a bit confused by her new surroundings, she soon remembered her old family: “It was like a light clicked,” she wrote. “She started barking in excitement and snuggling us.”
The story is yet another reminder to get your pets microchipped. Katrina says that that’s what made this miraculous reunion possible even after all these years.
“Looking back on it, I am forever grateful (she had a microchip),” she told the Chronicle Tribune.
We’re so glad that Daisy is finally back home where she belongs, after three years! We know this reunited family will be making up for lost time with their sweet old friend.
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