CARBONDALE, Pa. -- It was a homecoming more than two months in the making for one family and their dog in Lackawanna County.
After their dog ran away, the family nearly lost hope, but thanks to strangers the dog is back and they feel whole again.
Back in May, Stormy, the 2-year-old collie, dug a hole under the backyard fence and ran away from the house in Carbondale. More than 60 days later, the dog was found by a vacationing family more than 15 miles away in Wayne County.
After months apart, tears of joy rolled down Mary Lloyd's face as she was reunited with Stormy outside her home in Carbondale.
"You kind of cease to function because you have all things going through your mind like what is happening to him, is somebody being mean to him or cruel, and you just can't seem to bring yourself to your core to function normally," Lloyd said.
The family says days soon turned to weeks as they searched high and low for the collie. They contacted the Facebook group Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties Lost Dog Project for help.
Stormy was first spotted at a nearby park in Carbondale.
In June, Stormy was seen on trail cam footage in Jermyn and later at the Gentex facility in Carbondale.
"Unfortunately, he did not stay at any of them long enough for them to retrieve him."
After months of being lost, a vacationing family spotted Stormy on the Fourth of July in Wayne County, more than 15 miles away from home.
"He kind of collapsed behind their house, so they gave him food and water and they gave him a bath and they tried to cut his fur to get anything that was hurting him at the time."
The next day, after two months of being lost, Stormy was reunited with his family.
"You can't explain when you lose an animal how joyous the return is, just it is to your soul."
Mary Lloyd tells Newswatch 16 that Stormy is still recovering, and that spot where he originally dug out from has been boarded up.