It was a reunion eight years in the making.
When Paul Guilbeault’s dog, Damian, went missing in 2017, he never gave up hope he would one day be found.
But he can still hardy believe that, after a call came in from an unknown number earlier this month, he and his long lost friend are finally back together.
Eight years ago, Guilbeault was moving across the country from Massachusetts to Arizona, where he now lives. During a pit stop in Oklahoma, Damian got loose from his leash and ran off.
Guilbeault, along with his father and a friend he was traveling with, said they looked for Damian until well after midnight, only stopping for the day after they encountered a mountain lion. They stayed in Oklahoma another week, he said, searching high and low for the dog to no avail.
“I kept trying to search, but the search dwindled as the years went on. Eventually it got to the point where just seeing his missing poster hurt too much, and I didn’t share it as often as I used to in the beginning,” he said. “I thought that, honestly, he probably became food for that lion we ran into.”
“It was devastating — that dog got me through a lot of emotional things, family issues and whatnot, just being there for me as a companion,” he said. “I was his everything, as he was mine, and losing him was really, really tough.”
On Jan. 15, Guilbeault and his husband were driving to California to donate clothes and other supplies to wildfire victims. About an hour from the California border, he got a call from an unknown number. He ignored the call — and the number called again.
Eventually, the mysterious number sent a text, which was delivered to Guilbeault’s Apple Watch.
“My Apple Watch gave me a little preview, and it said, ‘Your dog, Damian, has been found,"” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘What the …?!"”
Guilbeault said he didn’t believe it at first, but he had his husband call the number back, and confirmed it was indeed true.
As it turned out, a woman in Oklahoma City told Guilbeault had nearly run over Damian, but then picked him up and brought him to stay with her brother. The brother took care of the dog for two weeks in early January until he was able to bring him to a veterinarian, who scanned him for a microchip, which showed he belonged to Guilbeault.
When Guilbeault saw Damian again, he was visibly older and scruffier than he had been eight years earlier, but he was undeniably his dog, wagging his tail upon reuniting with his owner. Guilbeault said he has no idea where Damian spent the previous eight years.
On the drive back to Arizona, Damian was the happy dog Guilbeault remembered from all those years ago.
“The whole time he was in my husband’s lap, curled up in a ball, and he would turn his head back, looking at me driving, and just have this giant smile,” he said. “I feel like he was thinking, ‘Oh my god, is this real? Did I really find him finally?"”
In the weeks since their reunion, Guilbeault and Damian have been making up for lost time, going to the park every day — though Damian is happiest sitting in his owner’s lap, Guilbeault said.
“Every time I get up to leave the room, he’s just like, ‘OK, where are you going now?"” he said.
Guilbeault said he’s grateful he microchipped his dog, and encouraged all pet owners to do the same.
“Microchip your pets!” he said. “Microchip your dogs, your cats, even your birds can be microchipped.”
