San Diego Dog Missing For 8 Months Found In Michigan

SAN DIEGO, CA — A dog missing from her San Diego home for eight months has been found safe 2,000 miles across the country in Michigan.

The happy ending started last week in the Detroit suburb of Harper Woods, where someone called police to report a stray dog wandering the area. Officers got in touch with the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society, who discovered the 3-year-old pup had a microchip identifying her as Mishka, a terrier mix registered to a family in San Diego.

The shelter called the family to share the good news and learned they were visiting relatives in Minneapolis. They piled in the car and drove 10 hours to Michigan to scoop up Mishka.

"I never gave up," Elizabeth Houman said. "I put up over a thousand flyers. I had a flyer on my back windshield. I wore her leash whenever I would look for her. Now I just want to find out how she got to Michigan."

The family said Mishka wandered away from a car garage where the father works in July and never returned, despite wearing a collar with their phone number. How she ended up 2,000 miles away is anyone's guess. The shelter's director speculated that Mishka could have been stolen then sold to an unknowing buyer, and the veterinarian who examined her said she stayed in good health.

"She was clean, well-fed. Whoever had her took good care of her," Nancy Pillsbury told the Associated Press. "How she got here — that's a story only Mishka knows."

The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.