Missing Dog Reunited with Military Family After 2 Years: 'In Shock That This Is Him'

Bear the dog went missing in Colorado Springs back in 2022 — and volunteers worked tirelessly to catch him and send him to his family in New York after he was spotted earlier this summer

A Colorado humane society is sharing a happy "tail" of a lost dog who was finally reunited with his owners — two years after he went missing.

In a Facebook post shared on Tuesday, Aug. 27, the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region (HSPPR) announced that a Colorado Springs dog named Bear had been found and is heading to join his owners in New York.

According to the HSPPR and local Colorado outlets KRDO and WKBT, Bear was living with owner Brandy Ross and the rest of her family when he escaped from a pet sitter's care in 2022 — and although the family shared missing posters both in person and on social media and reported him missing to authorities, he was never found.

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"Like, that was the hardest part ... going home after I had left him with the sitter and then coming home to not having my dog,” Ross told KRDO.

The "saddest part," as the HSPPR put it, was that soon after Bear's disappearance, the family had to move to New York state for work in the military.

However, hope was not lost — in July 2024, Colorado Springs Animal Law Enforcement spotted a dog that they thought might be Bear, and they called in a group of volunteers who occasionally do work with missing dogs for HSPPR.

According to the humane society, the "volunteers jumped on board" to set up feeding stations and place trial cameras to try and capture footage of the missing dog, and alerted Ross and the rest of Bear's family to let them know he may have been spotted.

“We then set up a time to put up what’s called a messy trap. So it’s a giant trap where they walk in, they hit a light, basically towards the back that triggers the door to close," Danielle Neiner, the volunteer who found Bear, told the outlet. "He was pretty matted, very dirty, all that different stuff. He’s definitely underweight. but health-wise, he’s had no health problems."

Finally, on Aug. 18, the volunteers successfully caught Bear, and according to the HSPPR, a microchip scan confirmed that he was, indeed, the same missing dog.

Ross told KRDO she couldn't believe Bear had been spotted after all this time.

"The whole night I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, is this my dog?' And then she read the numbers and she's like, 'It's him.' And I was like, 'No way.' And I was literally bawling my eyes out," she told the outlet. "Even now I’m in shock that this is him."

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The HSPPR confirmed in its Facebook post that the dog is "going home," and volunteers already set him up with a grooming session, a trip to the vet and a trip to New York on Sept. 1.

"We already bought all of his bed and his bowls, and my kids helped me buy him toys. And I video with him, every week, a couple times a week," Ross told KRDO ahead of Bear's journey to New York. "To now be like, ‘He’s OK.’ It’s weird. It was crazy. Our emotions were everywhere,"

"This story touches our hearts in a way that you probably couldn't imagine," HSPPR finished its Facebook post. "Someone told us. We told these volunteers., and out of the kindness of their hearts, they worked their butts off for Bear. It all paid off in the end because Bear is finally going to see his people again!"

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