David MacAnally/Eyewitness News
Updated: Sep 28, 2010 11:15 PM EDT
The O'Learys thought their pit bull, Marley, was lost forever...
The family was reunited with Marley in Elwood Tuesday.
Michelle Daniels found the lost dog and tracked down the O'Learys.
Elwood - A Madison County family was reunited with their dog more than a year after the pet disappeared.
"Marley" went missing in 2009, leaving a trail from Elwood to Westfield, back 39 miles to a backyard fence.
"He probably saw a bunny or a cat or something, ended up pushing the gate open. Not the kind of dog to just take off and not come back," said Marley's owner, Tim O'Leary.
"I was sad after, like, two weeks. Really sad that he didn't come back," said O'Leary's son, Trevor.
Slowly, two weeks became a year and a half.
"Two weeks ago, we just took his picture down, because the boys would kind of look at it and say, 'Oh, I miss Marley'," said Stephanie O'Leary.
They even replaced their beloved pit bull with another, named "Colt."
Michelle Daniels, who owns Key West Tanning in Elwood first spotted the missing pooch.
"I saw a dog run by the store real quick," she said.
She says her store is a bright spot for lost dogs.
"I'm an animal lover and anytime I can help it means a lot to me," Daniels said.
So somehow, in Elwood, strays end up at her door.
"The dog was in bad shape, crying, shaking, I said, 'We've got to find his owner'," Daniels said.
She went door-to-door with a friend, with Marley in tow, but had no luck. She took him to a veterinarian and found he had an ID microchip. They scanned the chip, but the phone numbers were disconnected.
Daniels called all the vets in two counties, then found the O'Learys. Their vet had a file on a pit bull named Marley.
The O'Leary boys were reunited with Marley Tuesday afternoon, looking forward to taking their dog, lost too long, home at last.
Daniels says it's important for pet owners to get the microchip for their pets, which is injected with a needle. She says it's also important to keep the information associated with the chip up to date, especially phone numbers.
Source: http://www.wthr.com/story/13234661/family-reunited-with-missing-dog-after-a-year?clienttype=printable
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