After 85 days of wandering around the Swift Current area Charlie, an eight-year-old, Labrador–heeler mix, returned home to his family on Monday.

Kandice Moss, Charlie's owner along with her husband Scott, said that they were playing with their son in the backyard when they mistakenly left a gate open, and when they came back to let Charlie and his brother in, they were gone.

Moss and her husband went our searching for their lost dogs, but the initial search was met with tragedy as they discovered that Charlie's brother had been hit by a vehicle and died.

After days of looking, they decided to expand their search and post on Facebook, hand out posters, take out a radio and online ads, and call Saskatchewan Animal Protection Services in hopes someone would be able to find their dog.

Moss said that the word spread fast, and they had a lot of people looking for him.

"We posted on Facebook, and that spread the word quite well," she said. "We had eyes everywhere. It was shared hundreds and hundreds of times, and we had so many leads, and so many out looking."

After weeks of her husband searching, and following leads, and sightings of their four-legged friend there was no luck.

Moss said that she was getting pretty discouraged about their chances of finding their dog,

“It was pretty discouraging,” she said. “I felt pretty negative about it. It’s not something that you hear every day, that a dog comes home after 85 days, so I hoped he would just show up on our doorstep one day.”

And that’s precisely what happened. Just after 12 weeks since Charlie disappeared, he returned home.

Moss said she was in shock when they found him.

“We were overjoyed when he just ran into the house,” she said. “It was a pretty great feeling, and there were lots of tears and hugs to be had.”