A Jack Russell terrier from Tennessee will soon be reunited with his owner after being found in a backyard in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Petey, the lucky pooch, had been lost since July, but his 73-year-old owner, Jim Arrighi, never stopped looking for him.
After he turned up in a backyard, Petey was taken to the Michigan Humane Society for an examination, where volunteers found a microchip that matched him to his owner in Tennessee, the Associated Press reports.
Arrighi's stepdaughter, Tyanne Morrison, 54, told the Detroit Free Press that the miraculous find is a relief after their search efforts.
"We've hunted and hunted everywhere. He's had pictures put in the paper. We put posters up everywhere. We rode around on four wheelers in the area, so we knew he wasn't hit by a car," Morrison told the paper.
The reunion is well timed, since Arrighi's wife passed away two weeks ago. He believes she may have helped their dog in some way to get back home, WDIV reported.
"My wife passed away on the the 12th of this month," he told the station. "That was terrible. I can't handle that very good."
Since Arrighi can't make the journey to collect Petey, the humane society volunteer Nancy Greiser and her friend will drive about 1,100 miles round-trip on Wednesday.
Petey isn't the first dog to be found a long way from home. One smart Shih Tzu returned home after going missing for five years -- most impressively, the home he returned to was a new house where his family had relocated to. Perhaps the ultimate missing dog story belongs to Muffy. Nine years after going missing from her home in Australia, she was found -- 1,200 miles away.
Many of these dogs were found and returned due to a microchip identifying their owners. To learn more about microchips, visit the American Veterinary Medical Association's website.