A Dog Somehow Made His Way From Florida To New Hampshire; Now He’s Heading Home

Nobody is really sure how Cooper, a 4-year-old bulldog who went missing from his Naples, Florida home nine months ago, wound up in Salem, New Hampshire, 1,500 miles away. Or how he survived the journey well-fed and uninjured. But whatever the specifics of his journey, one thing is certain; he is now heading home to be with his family as WMUR is reporting.

When Cooper turned up wandering around in Salem on November 30 without a collar, neighborhood residents took the dog to police, according to New England Cable News. The Florida dog hung out with the cops for a few hours, who thought that his owner would turn up looking for him soon enough, says Salem Animal Control Officer Corie Bliss.

“Dispatchers kept him in the office for a few hours thinking he was just a local dog that had run off.”

When no one came, he was taken to the local pound, where Bliss scanned him for a microchip. Fortunately for Cooper and his family, the microchip provided all the information Bliss needed to get the dog home; his owner’s name and phone number.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, Julie Shields hadn’t seen Cooper in nine months. Then she got a phone call that she wasn’t expecting from 1,500 miles away in New Hampshire.

“Somebody called me and said he was in New Hampshire. I said, ‘You know I’m in Florida, right?’ She said, ‘Yeah, we know everything about you. We found this microchip on your dog.'”

Oddly enough, when Shields herself found Cooper for the first time, he was lost and wandering then, too, she tells WMUR.

“I advertised him wherever I could think of — signs, Craigslist, that kind of stuff. Nobody ever claimed him.”

How Cooper managed to trek 1,500 miles from home and wind up in a New England state – in the winter, no less, and no worse for wear – is anybody’s guess. Barbara Hanson of Kindred Hearts Transport thinks some other family between Florida and New Hampshire must have taken care of him for a while.

“He’s in really good shape. He looks like he’s been well taken care of, so he’s been with someone.”

Kindred Hearts Transport is a network of volunteers that helps transport lost pets – or adoptive pets – to their homes, with volunteers driving them as far as they can on each leg of the journey. Through volunteers, Kindred Hearts will be getting Cooper home from New Hampshire to Florida, one leg at a time, over a journey that’s expected to last about a week and a half.

Cooper’s heartwarming story underscores the need to microchip your pets, says Bliss, in case they should ever get lost. While heartwarming stories of animals being found long distances away – such as a dog from Holland that wound up in Texas according to this Inquisitr report – make headlines, the reality is that the majority of lost pets are never reunited with their families.

Cooper will begin his journey from New Hampshire back to Florida on Monday. His family sent him some dog toys and a pillow to comfort him on his journey home.

[Image courtesy of: WMUR]