Dog travels 500 miles trying to get home

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MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A North Carolina dog, left at a farm in Virginia, traveled more than 500 miles on its own to try to make it home, his owner said.

Mark Wessells had taken his black Labrador to visit his father at a farm in Winchester, Va., thinking to leave Buck there while he was in the process of moving, The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News reported. Wessells said he couldn't take care of the dog temporarily.

"I wanted him to be up in Virginia where my dad has all this other property and he would've been happy," he told the newspaper. But a week later, Wessels' father called to say Buck was gone.

"We thought somebody stole him because that was the only thing we could think of," Wessells said. "For the longest time, my dad and brother had been keeping an eye out for him, but never saw him."

About six months later Brett Gallagher found Buck in Bellegrove, a Carolina Forest, S.C., subdivision, about two weeks ago, not far from Myrtle Beach. When he got a chance he took the dog to an animal hospital where Buck's microchip identifying the dog and his owner was found.

"The nurse came back and said, 'Are you Buck?' and he got so excited," Gallagher told the newspaper. "It must have been the first time he heard his name since he left."

The newspaper said when Buck and Wessells were reunited at the hospital, the dog showered him with kisses.