Georgia dog that vanished 6 years ago found wandering about 450 miles away in another state: ‘This is insane’

A dog that went missing in Georgia in 2017 will be reunited with his owner after being found wandering around a lake in West Virginia hundreds of miles away.

Tara Hillis, who lives near Atlanta, told WSAZ-TV her 1-year-old pit bull Chief somehow escaped from her property in 2017, and she had given up hope of finding him as the years went on. 

“I honestly thought I’d never see him again,” Hillis acknowledged. “Initially, I thought maybe someone took him to try to breed him, but he’s fixed. So many years go by, you just really miss him.”

Six years later, Chief was found by passersby wandering around East Lynn Lake in Wayne County, West Virginia, roughly a 450-mile drive from Atlanta.

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Chief was first found by rangers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before he escaped and was found by another unknown individual who took him to a shelter. 

“One of our rangers at East Lynn Lake, West Virginia, picked up this dog that was running loose on the lake property,” a spokesperson for the Huntington District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told Fox News Digital Friday. 

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“The rangers kept it at the project office for about a week while they tried to find its owner. Unfortunately, it escaped from them. The rangers were contacted by WSAZ and informed that the dog had been picked up by someone in the community and brought to the animal shelter in Cabell County. The animal shelter scanned it for a microchip and found that it belonged to someone in Georgia.”

Chief was brought to the Huntington Cabell Wayne Animal Control Shelter and linked to Hillis thanks to a microchip she had put in him.

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“I can’t believe this,” Hillis said. “This is insane. Every time I’d talk about it that day, I’d get chill bumps.”

Rachel Boone, a K-9 behavior specialist at the shelter, said Chief is doing well.

“If I think about my dog missing that long, it makes me want to cry,” Boone said. “I already want to cry for her.”

The shelter said it is figuring out the best way to reunite Chief with Hillis in the Atlanta area. Their reunion may happen this week.