For Brittney Novicks, her dog Ashley was like a beloved child.

Ashley is one of four dogs that Brittney owns and they are all precious to her.

It’s a close-knit family so when Ashley went missing, Brittney felt the loss deeply. Ashley’s dog-siblings were also devastated by this.

One of Brittney’s other dogs demonstrated this sadness. Brittney says that her other dog Mavis “stopped eating and laid by the door.” Dogs are pack animals, and this proves how connected they all were to each other.

So when the dog sitter accidentally left a door open, and Ashley escaped, everyone in the Novicks family felt it deeply.

But Brittney was determined to find her. When Ashley escaped, Brittney helmed a search party that lasted for hours. Brittney tells SavannahNow:

“I was out walking until 2 a.m. looking for her…It was awful.”

But despite their best efforts that night, they couldn’t find Ashley.

Then, Ashley turned up in a completely surprising place. Daytona Beach, Florida, 200 miles away from their Georgia home.

For two weeks, the Novicks family had no clue what happened to their beloved pup. Then, they got a Facebook message from someone who saw Brittney’s post about the missing dog.

The dog in Brittney’s post was the exact same dog as the one in a post by the Halifax Humane Society, an animal shelter based in Daytona Beach.

No one has any clue how the dog got all that way. The best guesses are that she was picked up by a trucker or someone driving, and then was left or got loose again.

There was joy in knowing that Ashley had been found. But, the Humane Society had changed Ashley’s name and was on the verge of giving her up for adoption.

The Humane Society had no clue that Ashely had a loving family and a home to go back to. So when she turned up in their shelter, they wanted to get her a home as soon as possible.

If the Novicks family had found this out even a few hours later, Ashley might have been given to another family.

Brittney called the Humane Society just in time. To prove that this dog was hers, she asked the volunteer on the phone to go call the dog by her real name “Ashley” and see if she responded.

Part of the mixup was because Ashley didn’t have a microchip.

The workers at the Humane Society took this moment to stress the importance of having your dog microchipped. The Halifax Humane Society says:

“Had Ashley been microchipped, she would have been returned much sooner…Only about 22 percent of lost dogs that entered animal shelters last year were reunited with their families. However, the return-to-owner rate for microchipped dogs was over 52 percent.”

When the shelter worker confirmed that Ashley responded to her name, Brittney grabbed her vet papers and headed to Daytona to claim her dog.

A video of their reunion has now gone viral because of Ashley’s enthusiastic reaction to seeing her family again.

Brittney walks into the kennel where Ashley is. Brittney knows that this is her dog, and Ashley also instantly recognizes her. Although the dog is behind glass, she immediately jumps up and tries to get into her mom’s arms.

Brittney is just as ready to have her dog back. Ashley is a big husky, but when she is let out of the kennel and runs over to her mom, Brittney picks her up in her arms like it’s no big deal. They both missed each other so much, they needed to really hold on to one another.

Watch the video below to see the touching reunion for yourself!

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Source: The Dodo, Daily Mail, Savannah Now