Photo credit: Bob White / Flickr

One of the latest travel trends involves furry friends accompanying their humans on vacations, but a few adventurous canines are setting out to see the world on sojourns of their own. We were all charmed and mesmerized as children while the story of “Lassie Come Home” tugged at our hearts, but Lassie has a few real-life modern counterparts with tales just as fascinating. Following are several accounts of dogs who have somehow ended up far from home, and have somehow found their way back to the human families.

Dog Returns from Eight-Year-Long Vacation

Junior is a Jack Russell terrier who first met his human Jessica Reid on Christmas of 2004, when he licked her face until she woke and was delighted at the sight of her new furry friend.

About a year later, Junior disappeared after being let outdoors to do his morning business. When they went to let him back in, he was simply gone.

The family did the usual things; put up signs, haunted the local shelters, offered a reward. As the months passed, though, they finally came to the realization that Junior probably wasn’t coming back.

But eight years later, Junior showed up in their driveway. Even though Jessica recognized him immediately, the rest of the family weren’t so sure, until they discovered that he was still wearing his collar and tags.

Junior didn’t say where he’s been or what he’d been doing, and the family is keeping close tabs on him to make certain that he doesn’t slip away for another eight-year adventure.

Airedale Terrier Takes the Long Way Home After an Auto Wreck

When Max’s human Bill Clark was involved in an automobile accident near Sterling, Connecticut, Max panicked and ran into the woods seeking safety. Bill launched a substantial search for Max after returning to his home in Coventry, Rhode Island, but Max was nowhere to be found. Several leads that popped up ended up as dead-ends, and Bill began to believe that he would never see his beloved Airedale terrier again.

However, one day about one month later, Bill came home to the wondrous sight of Max sitting in his back yard. Max had braved his way across 45 miles of unfamiliar terrain to make his way back to his human. An examination by a vet found that Max had sustained no injuries from his travels, and that the only physical result of his journey was that he lost 11 pounds.

Black Lab Travels 500 Miles to Find His Human

Having left his two-year-old black Labrador retriever with his father in Virginia to complete a move to South Carolina, Mark Wessells was afraid that he would never see Buck again, after the dog disappeared from his father’s fenced back yard. After searching for his furry friend for a period of time and coming to the conclusion that Buck had probably been stolen, Mark did his best to forget about him.

Several weeks later, a Myrtle Beach resident Brett Gallagher found a black Lab wandering the subdivision where he lived. No one seemed to know where the dog belonged, so Brett decided to keep him and took him to the vet for an examination. The vet checked the dog for a microchip after learning that he had been found as a stray, and…it was Buck! Mark was in the vet’s office within minutes after being called because he only lived a short distance away.
Anyone who doubts that animals don’t experience emotions has obviously never had a furry friend fight all odds to return home to them.