Mia is an eye-catching pup who lives with her owners in Charlotte County, Florida. She’s a bull terrier — the same breed as the Target Dog — and she must have caught the eye of a passerby in December as she turned up missing just days before Christmas.
According to WBBH-TV, the owners said that in the time they’d lived in the home, Mia had never wandered off and not returned, so they suspected something more nefarious was at play.
Five days before Christmas, they reported her missing and set about trying to find their lost pet.
Owner Brandie Benenhaley had a hunch: The night Mia had gone missing, she’d noticed an unfamiliar car with Kentucky plates parked nearby. She suspected that someone may have stolen the friendly dog, and her neighbor was able to give her more details.
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“I decided to reach out to the lost and founds pets of Kentucky,” she told WBBH-TV.
Posting in the Missing Pets in Bowling Green/Warren County KY group on Facebook, Benenhaley explained the predicament.
“So this might be really far fetched but someone from possibly bowling green Kentucky came down to port Charlotte Florida to buy something from my neighbor, and the people from Kentucky were last people to see my dog, she honestly could be anywhere from port Charlotte to Kentucky but she’s my baby please help me find her,” she wrote.
“[H]er name is Mia and she’s a bull terrier with Carmel colored eyes, she’s a very sweet girl she’s only a little over a year and she has a deaf brother who needs her everyday, she’s been missing since December 19th, she’s not chipped.”
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The post was shared hundreds of times, and people kept an eye out for Mia. Then Benenhaley got a message from a good Samaritan who had seen an advertisement of a dog for sale that looked just like Mia.
“She actually sent me information of the person who had my dog,” Benenhaley said, WBBH-TV reported.
Armed with a direction and contact details, the couple set out for Kentucky and made contact with the seller. Somehow, they convinced the woman to meet them at a parking lot and give the dog back to them, and after almost two weeks of separation and 13 hours of driving, Mia was back in Benenhaley’s arms.
“I called for her, and she ran up to me, and I just was screaming,” Benenhaley recalled.
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“We found our girl in Kentucky !!!!!!” Benenhaley posted on Facebook. “Someone took her from our yard and the neighbor gave me a name and a state and I did my detective work and thanks to everyone in Kentucky I found my baby.”
No word on the state of the seller or details on the agreement they reached, but Mia is back home where she belongs, and that’s what’s most important.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
