INDIANAPOLIS- An Anderson, Indiana family has been reunited with its dog that went missing five days ago in New Mexico.
It all started Sunday night in New Mexico when the family was on a cross-country road trip. The family dog, Sky, got loose while they were making a pit stop.
“Life was different without her. Day to day was different,” mother Miranda Huckeby said. “For my son, he stopped eating for days.”
An old adage says that a dog is man’s best friend, and that proved to be true on Friday night when Sky was reunited with her favorite person, 8-year-old Merrick.
”She protects him. She sleeps under his bed,” Huckeby said. “If she can’t be under the bed, she sleeps in the doorway. She won’t move.”
Merrick has severe autism and Sky has been with him for four years. Strangers across the country stepped in to help reunite the family in Anderson in a matter of days.
”I’ve seen dogs reunited after a couple of years so a week for the world to really come together and get her home is incredible,” said ‘Y2K Pet Transport’ driver Liz Yorek.
Yorek, who works with ‘Y2K Pet Transport‘, said she knew she had to help because this hit too close to home for her.
”My son is actually an adult with autism,” Yorek said. “He is 19 now, so this is really special for us to be able to do this.”
Yorek was brought to the Huckeby household with a special escort from law enforcement. With her was Sky.
”Usually when law enforcement shows up it is not in the best light of a situation, and this is the opposite,” said Madison County Sherriff John Beeman.
Almost one week after the disappearance, Merrick got to go to sleep on Friday with his best friend nearby.
”They are going to be a pair,” Huckeby said. “They are going to be side by side every day like they are.”