Small dog goes missing in Texas, found in Ohio

No one really knows how a small dog made a 1,600-kilometre journey from Texas to Ohio, but his owner sure is glad to have him back.

On March 25, a 3-year-old Chihuahua-Dachshund mix named Corbin dug a hole under the fence in his backyard in Killeen, Texas, and disappeared.

He was found four days later in Hamilton, Ohio, about 50 kilometres north of Cincinnati.

"It sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true stories," Corbin's owner, Mike Saiz, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "This isn't the first time he dug a hole under the fence. One time he was waiting for us on our front porch and the other two times we had to pick him up from the local pound."

Saiz believes Corbin must have hitched a ride to Ohio.

"Because we're in a military town, and people come and go a lot, he may have jumped in the back of somebody's U-Haul," Saiz told the Houston Chronicle.

According to the Associated Press, a surveillance camera at the Animal Friends Humane Society in Hamilton captured a woman leaving Corbin at the shelter late Friday night.

Shelter workers found the pup the next morning. He was tied to a bench, soaking wet from the rain and a little scared, but in otherwise good health. A microchip helped shelter staff identify his owners.

"They called my wife and she told me that they found our dog, but she didn't sound happy about it," Saiz said. "I asked if he was OK and she told me he was fine. I then asked where the shelter was and she said, 'Hamilton — not Hamilton, Texas, but Hamilton, Ohio.'"

When Texas television station KCEN shared the story on its Facebook page, people from all over the country offered to help transport the small dog from Ohio back to Texas.

"The outpouring show of support is unbelievable. So many people were willing to help," Saiz said. "We are just amazed about the whole situation and that he is heading home right now."

A Killeen woman who had been attending her mother's funeral in Ohio volunteered to drive Corbin home.

"The last update we got, he's in Arkansas," Saiz said about 12:30 p.m. yesterday. "Hopefully, sometime this evening, he'll be home. My eight-year-old son will be pretty excited."

Saiz and his wife also have two daughters, ages 10 and 15.

The sheriff's office is still searching for the woman who tied Corbin to the bench outside the shelter.