Watch dog reunite with Florida family after almost a year. ‘Hearts are completely full’

A Florida family’s hearts are now “completely full” after they were reunited with their dog that had been lost for almost a year.

A video posted by the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office shows the happy moment.

“Warning: We are not responsible for any tears shed while watching this video,” the post says. “Proceed at your own risk.”

The video shows the dog rounding a corner in the sheriff’s office building, seeing the family and starting to wag his tail uncontrollably.

“We were so overwhelmed with joy and love to have him back home,” Taylor Butts, who owns the dog with her husband and their two young daughters, told McClatchy News.

She remembered the day Conway, their 5-year-old blue nose pit bull, ran away on Nov. 11, 2021.

Her husband let him out of their house in Wachula in the morning, as he always did before work. But, when he went to let him back in, he was nowhere to be seen. Wachula is about 100 miles southwest of Orlando.

“We searched the neighborhoods, put it on Facebook, we made posters, and he just never came back,” Butts said.

As the months went by, the family refused to give up hope, but their spirit was starting to fade.

“We never wanted to believe he was gone,” she said.

Then, on Sept. 12, her husband got a phone call.

“I just remember him saying, ‘What? No way,’ ” she said. “And he was like, ‘We have Conway.’ And we both just burst into tears.”

Deputies with the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office had found Conway, looking skinny and exhausted, wandering a street in Sebring, about 30 miles east of Wachula, according to Scott Dressel, the spokesman for the sheriff’s office. The dog was wearing a cable that had a yard anchor on the end, Dressel said. Deputies believe he’d been found by someone and was being kept in their yard.

Conway had been microchipped

The story of Conway’s reunion with his family is an example of the benefit of microchips, Dressel said.

Microchips are “tiny transponders” that are placed beneath a pet’s skin and contain a registration number and the phone number of a registry that can be contacted in the event the animal gets lost, according to the Humane Society. The chips can be scanned with special scanners that most shelters and animal control offices have.

Only 15 percent of dogs and 2 percent of cats without microchips are found by their owners, according to the American Humane Society.

Dressel said it’s illegal to find a dog and keep it without first checking to see if it has a microchip. If a dog is turned over to authorities and it isn’t microchipped, the protocol in Highland County is to wait five days to see if anyone comes to claim the dog, and if not, the person who found it can keep it.

Butts said she’s grateful that her family got Conway microchipped so that they could be reunited.

“He’s the biggest teddy bear, he’s the most lovable and playful,” she said. “He’s more than a dog to us.”

People who watched the video of the reunion were also touched by it.

“I cried like a damn baby,” one Facebook user, Brittany Deshea, commented on the video. “I am so glad this baby was reunited with his loving family!! He remembers.”

“I LOVE when babies are reunited with their rightful owners!” another Facebook user, Mariah Castillo, commented. “I am so happy this fur baby has been brought back home.”

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