Dog reunites with original owner in Goose Creek four years after separation

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - A Goose Creek man says it had been four years since he saw his dog, but that all changed on Monday.

Brian Owens says he rehomed his dog, Selene, in 2016. The dog was dropped off at the Berkeley Animal Shelter as a stray earlier this week.

Selene was microchipped so the shelter was able to look up Owen's contact to get in touch with him.

It's a call he never expected after giving his dog away.

Last Sunday he thought a voicemail from a microchip company was a mistake, they told him they found his dog.

"The first thing I thought was that's terrible," Owens said. "They found somebody's pet and they have the wrong phone number."

He had another message from the Berkeley County Animal Center. They told him the same thing, and the next day he went to pick her up.

"They went and got her, and brought her out into the front room, and she immediately jumped up on my wife," Owens said. "So, I was a little disappointed because she kind of ignored me for the first few minutes, but it's like she recognized my wife immediately. So, it was very special, very, very emotional for me too."

Owens says four years ago he and his wife made the difficult decision to find a new home for their two dogs Selene and her brother, Barnabas, because they began caring for his wife's parents.

About a week after interviewing and choosing a new family for the dogs, Barnabas was found roaming, Owens says.

A shelter called Owens to pick up Barnabas after a microchip reconnected them as well.

After that, he said he tried getting Selene back from the family they selected.

"She told me that they would bring her to me, and that's the last thing I heard in the last four years," Owens said.

While he says Selene was never dropped off then, it's now four years later and she was found in Summerville.

It's still not clear where she was over this time, but Owens says they're glad to have her back.

Selene was found underweight and in the last week she gained about 10 pounds. She still needs to gain about 15 more pounds to reach a healthy weight.

If you find a lost animal, the Berkeley County Animal Center encourages you to get the dog scanned to see if it’s microchipped so they can reconnect them with the owner.