SACRAMENTO, CA (KOVR/CNN) - A dog returned home after more than half-a-year on the road.
It's been a long time coming for Shaunta Lowman.
Try 10 months long.
"Where you been?” said Lowman to her husky, Champ. “I was waiting for you."
The two are back together thanks to a bunch of volunteers and the pup's micro chip.
The 2-year-old husky somehow got away or was taken away from his Sacramento home on April 21, 2017.
"He's been gone for so long but I never stopped giving up hope," Lowman said.
How could she?
When Lowman got a call that he had been found in Bakersfield, CA, some 300 miles away, husky volunteer groups went to work to bring him home.
From Bakersfield to Fresno. From Fresno to Manteca, Manteca to Galt.
Galt to Sacramento, strangers arranged for drivers to bring Champ back every step of the way.
"Complete strangers, literally, all of them were complete strangers to me and they helped me get my dog back home," Lowman said. "Without them I wouldn't have been able to get him back."
This also may not have been possible if Lowman didn't have Champ micro-chipped.
"The biggest thing here with this story is that he was micro-chipped, that's the only way that we were really able to reunite him," volunteer Nicole Maniates said.
She said huskies have been known to wander and have been found in different states.
Champ's traveling days are over for now.
The only wandering he'll be doing will be in the yard that he hasn't sniffed for nearly a year.
Welcome home husky.
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