LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A family's beloved dog that was lost by a Rover sitter has been found thanks to a 13 investigation and an alert channel 13 viewer.
It's a heartwarming follow up to what began as a heartbreaking story.
Gunner, a mini Aussiedoodle, had been separated from his family for four months until our 13 investigation shared his owner's plea.
"If someone has him and if they're watching this right now, what do you want them to hear?" Darcy Spears asked Nicole Manson during an interview late last year.
"That he is a loved dog," Manson said. "I know people find dogs and they think they're being neglected or something. He was not. He was very much loved. He's still loved. He's such a family dog that it's not just me feeling it. It's my whole family."
Manson's family recently picked Gunner up after she says a viewer messaged her on Facebook.
Our story aired on February 23, four months after Gunner escaped from the home of a Rover sitter who Manson hired to care for him over a few days in late October.
"The big thing I tell people... Do not give up!" said professional dog tracker Michele Dorais-Hood, who helped search for Gunner with her trained tracking dog, Smooch.
"And we did track that Gunner left the house, went through the neighborhood and out onto the main street. And then she lost scent across the street in a neighborhood, which could mean that Gunner was picked up," Dorais-Hood explained.
According to Manson, that's pretty much what happened. She says she was told that Gunner ran into someone's yard in a community next to the one where the sitter lived near Pebble Rd. and Gillespie St.
It was the home of an older couple who couldn't take care of him, but gave him to a family member.
Although Manson says Gunner was chipped, the family who found him reportedly had him scanned for a microchip several times, but it wasn't detected, so they decided to keep him.
Then, some neighbors saw our story, recognized Gunner and the timeline, and messaged Manson on Facebook.
They were reunited after the family who had Gunner agreed to give him back.
"I'm Navajo so to say 'baby', we say 'wetso', so I call him that all the time. All my family members, my grandma... we call him our baby."
They couldn't be happier to have him once again in the warmth and shelter of his true home.
The sitter who lost Gunner says she took down her Rover profile after that incident and has not done any dog sitting since then.
Rover previously issued Manson a full refund.
