Family’s dog turns up 10 years after vanishing from home

Jody Berisko, an employee at Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley gets a kiss from Abby on Jan. 30, 2018. A Pennsylvania family has been reunited with its dog 10 years after the dog went missing. Debra Suierveld and her family assumed their dog Abby had died after she ran away in 2008 from their home in Apollo. Decade-old sadness turned to joy Saturday when Suierveld received word someone had found the dog. (Nate Smallwood/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via AP)

APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — A family has been reunited with its dog 10 years after the dog went missing.

Debra Suierveld and her family assumed their dog Abby had died after she ran away in 2008 from their home in Apollo, but decade-old sadness turned to joy on Saturday when Suierveld received word someone had found the dog.

The black Labrador mix showed up on George Speiring’s front porch in Lower Burrell, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Apollo. Speiring contacted Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley, which discovered the dog’s microchip and was able to contact Suierveld.

Someone had taken good care of Abby over the years. Abby is in great health and remembers things the family taught her, Suierveld said.

“She would lie on the floor and cross her paws, and she remembers my daughter’s commands, and she remembers the commands I taught her,” Suierveld told KDKA-TV.

Suierveld called her 22-year-old daughter, who is a student at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, to share the news.
“She cried,” Suierveld told the Tribune-Review.

Suierveld’s family has planned a reunion dinner on Sunday to welcome Abby back.

“It feels like a part of my kids’ childhood is back, part of our family is back,” Suierveld said. “It’s pretty awesome.” MKH

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