Homeward Bound: Dog Back From 1,000-Mile Odyssey

A tiny Boston terrier thought to be dead after going missing for three years was reunited with his Miramar family

It's a journey and an ending made for the movies.

A tiny dog leaves his domestic, cushy lifestyle to return to the wild and find his inner canine. Well, no one really knows ToBoi's motives, but the Boston terrier is back home in South Florida.

ToBoi may not have found that call of the wild, but he probably has a helluva story to tell.

He was reunited with his South Florida owners on Wednesday, three years after he was thought to be dead after he went missing from his home. A good Samaritan paid the airfare for ToBoi (pronounced Toe Boy) who was stranded in Louisiana at a local animal shelter.

No one knows how the dog traveled 1,000 miles to the north, and when he was found, no one knew how the canine would get back. His owner, Barbara Apostolo, had lost her job and couldn't afford to get him back home.

But a Miami woman heard about the story and contacted the Lake Charles animal shelter to offer to pay for the reunion.

"He looks a lot older and a lot skinnier than what I remember," said Apostolo as she inspected her long-lost pet fresh off his Continental Airlines flight. "He reminds me of happier times."

Shelter employees found a microchip install under ToBoi's skin after he was brought in as a stray and that identified him and his owner. A similar microchip was found on a dog thought to be lost at sea in Australia last week.

That dog swam five miles and fended for itself in the wild for a few weeks before rangers found him.

In these troubling times, we should all hope to be as tough - and as lucky - as these dogs.

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