In what will most likely be the plot of an upcoming Disney or Pixar movie, a Georgia woman was reunited with their dog, who was found on Saturday after disappearing six years ago. The dog was found almost 500 miles from its original home.
The 7-year-old pitbull, Chief, was spotted wandering near East Lyn Lake, a city almost 20 miles from the Georgia border with Kentucky. A passerby was able to catch the dog, bringing it to a nearby shelter, where they examined the dog.
Shelter workers found that Chief had been microchipped as a puppy and that he belonged to Tara Hillis of Atlanta, who shared with WSAZ that she never thought she was going to see her furry friend again.
“Initially, I thought maybe someone took him to try to breed him, but he’s fixed,” Hillis told the station. “So many years go by. You just really miss him.”
Chief and Hillis had been best buds, as she got the good boy when he was a puppy, but in 2017, when he was around 1-and-a-half years old, he went missing from her property.
She told WSAZ that at first, she thought someone had stolen him from her yard, but later realized he most likely jumped or dug from under her fence to escape.
Despite her efforts to find her lost puppy, Hillis was never able to locate him, but still kept hope she might one day.
“So many years go by, you’re just kinda like, ‘Oh, I miss him,” Hillis said.
When he was found in East Lynn Lake, Chief was located by the Huntington District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, spending a week in their office as they tried to find his owner. However, his escape tactics shined once again, according to a spokesperson for the corps.
“Unfortunately, it escaped from them,” the spokesperson told Fox News.
Eventually, Chief wound up at the Huntington-Cabell-Wayne Animal Control Shelter, where workers shared he was healthy and happy, despite being on the run for the majority of his life.
The shelter’s K-9 behavior specialist, Rachel Boone, shared with The New York Post that Chief is “just a big baby.”
And the baby boy is set to reunite with his owner this week, as Hillis says she is just extremely happy to see him come home after all these years. The two could be reconnected as soon as Monday, the Post reported.
As for what Hillis is expecting, she is only hoping that Chief remembers who she is.
“I can’t believe this,” Hillis said. “This is insane. Every time I’d talk about it that day, I’d get chill bumps.”
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