BUCKLEY, Wash. — There was a long-awaited reunion, more than four years in the making.
An 11-year-old dog disappeared from his Renton neighborhood back in 2017.
He and his owner were finally reunited last spring.
It is four letter word with such profound meaning. And indeed, Archie is back home, this time for good.
“He’s home, that’s for sure,” said Michelle Voegele. “Boy, oh, boy.”
“Oh, my goodness, dream come true,” Voegele exclaimed. “Just a miracle, a miracle.”
She wasn’t sure she would get him back. “No,” she said. “No.”
For more than four years, the only sign Voegele had of Archie was the one she had made. He wandered out of the house in the Renton Highlands that she shared with a roommate during a snowy February 2017. He disappeared without a trace.
“Come to find out, six of my neighbors had their dogs stolen right out of their yards,” she said.
Stolen by whom?
“Well, supposedly there’s a dog ring,” she said.
Still, she put the word out on social media sites. She got a lot of response, but no Archie. Then in May she got an unexpected phone call from a veterinary tech.
“And she said, ‘Is your name Michelle and do you have a dog named Archie,’” said Voegele, laughing. “And I was so stunned I could barely talk. I think I spoke a different language when I replied.”
Archie had ended up in a home in Bothell.
And then came the reunion. She says Archie recognized her.
“He did, he did,” she said. “He sure did.”
Even on the way to her home in Buckley, there were signs about a missing dog. It turns out a lot of dog owners find themselves in the position that Michelle did. But she has advice for anyone who has an “Archie” they don’t want to lose.
“To (micro) chip your dog,” she said. “Chip your dog.”
Michelle does not believe the family that ended up with Archie stole him.
Now that he is back home, she doesn’t plan to pursue whoever did.