Dog Missing For 8 Months Reunites With Owner After Pet Is Found 175 Miles Away From Home

The Massachusetts dog was found in Maine, but no one is sure how he got there

Published on February 20, 2019 11:46AM EST

A missing dog separated from his owner for eight months had a happy homecoming after he was found some 175 miles and two states away from where he took off.

Kaiser, a 5-year-old king shepherd, was reunited with owner Tom Woollacott Friday in South Paris, Maine – a long trip from Woollacott’s home of Ashby, Massachusetts.

Woollacott told the Bangor Daily News that Kaiser escaped in June 2018 after hopping a 6-foot wall while in the care of a family friend.

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The man said that at first, Kaiser was spotted locally multiple times, but he was never caught.

“I spent like three or four weeks just putting 1,500 miles on my car. Every day. He’d been seen around here for like a month,” Woollacott told the Daily News. “I talked to a lady who had walked into her horse barn. She said, ‘I thought it was a wolf.’ But by the time I got there, he was gone.”

Kaiser continued to stay missing for months – until a woman in Bethel, Maine, spotted the big dog on her porch, according to Missing Dogs Massachusetts, a non-profit dedicated to reuniting lost dogs with their families.

“A woman’s freezer in Bethel had died and she put out $160 of meat on her porch,” the organization wrote in a Facebook post. “The next morning, she went out and half the meat was gone and that is when she saw Kaiser. She fed him for 3 weeks more and then contacted Animal Control who trapped him.”

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Once in the care of an Animal Control officer, Kaiser was taken to a no-kill shelter in South Paris, Maine, called Responsible Pet Care of Oxford Hills.

The shelter detailed the dog’s journey in a Facebook post, explaining that they scanned him for a microchip and checked his collar for tags when he was brought in on Feb. 6, but found no indication of where the dog belonged.

To help get the word out, the non-profit put Kaiser’s picture up on Facebook, dubbing him “Grizz,” in the hopes that someone would recognize him.

“Day 5 came of his stray hold and we got a call from a lady in Massachusetts, saying she was watching this dog for about 6 hrs when he slipped his lead and took off,” the Facebook post read. “The last sighting was about 75 miles away from where she was located. That was 8 MONTHS AGO IN MASSACHUSETTS!!”

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The shelter said it was put into contact with Woollacott, who went up to Maine as soon as he was able to confirm that the dog was actually Kaiser.

“We don’t know how Kaiser ended up in Maine, did he get here himself?” the shelter wrote. “Was he taken? Was he picked up and then escaped again? We may never know, but we do know that his family never stopped looking, and today will be the happiest day for all of them.”

The emotional reunion between Woollacott and his pup was captured on video by Missing Dogs Massachusetts, who then shared the footage on Facebook.

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“You lost a little weight, huh?” Woollacott tells Kaiser, as the canine jumps up and wags his tail excitedly.

Woollacott celebrated the dog’s homecoming on Friday with a sweet selfie with Kaiser.

“He’s back! He was gone for 8 months and was found 125 miles away, living in the woods by Sunday river,” he wrote. “Welcome back Kaiser!”

He later shared a photo featuring Kaiser lounging with his two young children.