'Miracles do happen': Dog gone for 3 weeks returns home to Albion family
'I'm still in shock. It's been a couple days and still every time I look at her, I cry'
Melissa Gosbee was working from home at her kitchen table on Friday when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
"I assumed it was one of our goats," said Gosbee. "We have a goat that looks just like Ivy. I looked over and I kind of took a double take. And sure enough, it was Ivy."
Ivy is one of the Gosbee's dogs. The two-year-old Lab-husky mix had been missing for three weeks.
"I just started screaming and bawling because I was just in shock and I couldn't even form words to tell everybody what had happened," she said. "I was just running through the house. I couldn't get to her fast enough."
A little more than three weeks ago, Gosbee let her two dogs, Ivy and Willow, out of the house in the morning. Gosbee lives in the Albion area, near Montague, and often lets her dogs roam around the property.
When she looked out and saw Willow standing alone, she knew something wasn't right.
"It's very unusual for just Willow to be alone. They're always together. And we realized that Ivy was missing."
Soon after, Gosbee started reaching out to neighbours. She posted online and searched for Ivy. But no one had seen her.
Gosbee began to worry that something had happened to the dog in the woods surrounding her house.
After three weeks, Gosbee said the family was still searching.
"We were really losing hope," she said. "With absolutely zero sightings from anybody, we were beginning to think that maybe something did happen to her out in the woods."
The dogs are always around Gosbee, her husband and their two children.
"The dogs are just … more our children, we love them so much. They're part of the family, that's for sure. And nothing was the same without Ivy."
'We all just held her and cried'
Then, out of the blue, Ivy showed up on Friday.
"When she's ready to come in, she always knows to come to that window for me. She just looks at me kind of through the window and I'll walk around to the door and let her in," said Gosbee.
"We all met her at the doorstep and … we all just held her and cried."
Ivy had lost some weight, said Gosbee, but otherwise she seemed fine. She's already back to her normal energetic self.
"I'm still in shock. It's been a couple days and still every time I look at her, I cry. I cry because I'm happy that she's home. I cry because we don't know what has happened the last three weeks and the trauma that she's had," said Gosbee.
Gosbee said they won't be letting the dogs out of their sight again, and she hopes the story gives other people hope who might be looking for a lost pet.
"Miracles do happen. They do come back home. Sometimes things happen."