Beloved 'Cowie' Makes 2,300-Mile Trek Home Thanks to the Generosity of Strangers

Like many people who have dabbled in social media, Richard Sains from the English town of Billericay, Essex, was a skeptic.

“For me I’m always a little bit hesitant with social media — there can be a lot of negativity,” he said, according to the Mirror.

But a recent interaction with multiple strangers, all freely offering their time and assistance to restore joy to his little girl, has got him thinking differently.

It all began during a family vacation back in August, when Richard, his wife Chrissie, and their daughters Meg, 12, and Hattie, 10, went on a road trip through Iceland.

One of their stops was at a campground near Vik i Myrdal. After they moved on, Hattie realized too late that she’d left something precious behind.

“Cowie” was a very important stuffed animal to Hattie. He’d been with her since she was two, and the thought of losing him was distressing — but the family was unable to return and retrieve him, as they had booked each of their stops and had a flight to catch.

“She was really upset at first,” Chrissie, 42, said, according to the Echo. “She thought she might have lost him rather than left him.

“We got in touch with campsite and they said she’d left him within the covers of bell tent.”

But when they tried to get Cowie sent home, they ran into roadblock after roadblock.