UPDATE: Johnny the Shih Tzu is Home

After seven days being away from home, it was a phone call from an informed watcher than finally brought Johnny home. Patch first told you about the Shih Tzu that went missing from his Plainfield home on Aug. 9.

"She called and said, 'he’s just outside my door I don’t want to open my door and startle him,'" Linda Herrick, neighbor of the woman who is fostering Johnny, said.

Herrick said all the people who had been looking for Johnnie sprung into action and went over to the Patriot Square subdivision to get the dog to bring him home. Herrick said she thought she had passed out a flier to the woman whose property Johnny ended up at on Tuesday because she did not try to track him down herself and instead called and said she did not want to startle him.

"We’re so thrilled," Herrick said. "We took him directly from there to the vet."

Herrick said the pads of the dog's front paws were worn down and he had lost about a pound and a half — down from 11 pounds to about 9.5.

"We had 8-10 people in the vets' office in the waiting room going, how is he?" Herrick said. "He does have some bandages on his front paws and he just looks like he needs a nice, long nap."

Throughout this whole experience, Herrick was touched by the willingness of people to make an effort to help find a dog they had never seen when they were asked by people they had never met.

"There were just people who had no connection except that they really really cared about finding this little do," she said.

Now, Herrick said she gratefully needs to take down all the fliers that volunteers passed out to help bring Johnny home. She hopes individuals will help in that process.

"If you have the flier, thank you so much and feel free to take it down," she said.