Apollo, the Josey family's 13-year-old Shih Tzu, vanished from their Ocala property in April after slipping through a gate, and now, months later, he's on his way home from over 1,000 miles north.
Finding Apollo has brought relief, but it also leaves one big mystery: how did a senior dog from central Florida end up on Long Island?
What happened?
Marion County Sheriff's Office records and the family's own account trace the disappearance to that April gate escape, as relayed to Fox 13 News. A Long Island animal shelter later called the Joseys out of the blue with news they'd been hoping for.
Staff at that shelter had scanned a microchip embedded in Apollo and traced it straight back to his owners. What happened in between, how a small dog from Ocala ended up hundreds of miles north, remains a mystery.
Vera Josey said someone found Apollo near the family's home, asked a neighbor if they knew who the dog belonged to, and then left with him. The situation became even stranger when Apollo turned up at the Long Island shelter with a tag bearing an unfamiliar name.
"She goes, Well, the dog came in and has a name tag called Yuri. And I said, His name's not Yuri. His name is Apollo Franklin Josey," Vera told Fox 13.
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Nick Josey booked a flight north to bring his dog home.
Why does it matter?
The microchip made all the difference: despite a stranger's name tag, it let shelter workers trace Apollo straight back to the Joseys.
Nick Josey underscored how much that means to the family when he said, "I'm probably gonna cry. He was our child for 13 years before we had kids."
What's being done?
Once that microchip turned up a match, the shelter reached out, and the reunion process got underway.
Through months of uncertainty, the family refused to give up on getting Apollo back.
The Joseys are now looking ahead to Florida, where Apollo will meet the family's newest addition for the first time.
"We definitely kept the faith, held out hope. We still got his dog food, we still got his toys, we've still got all his stuff. So we knew Apollo was gonna come home. It was just a matter of when," Vera Josey said.
"I can't wait for him to meet his baby brother," she concluded.
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