A family dog which went missing during a walk through bushland on the Sunshine Coast four years ago has been found and reunited with her family.

Sammy the labrador was three years old when she disappeared at Wild Horse Mountain, north of Brisbane, in October 2013.

This past Friday she was found and taken to a local vet surgery, and reunited with her family over the weekend.

Ms Lee's daughter Jamie gets some long-overdue cuddles in with Sammy. ( Supplied: Aubrey Lee )

Sammy's owner Aubrey Lee launched a large social media appeal for her pet's safe return back in 2013 — with a Facebook group coordinating searches and spreading the word of her disappearance.

It attracted hundreds of followers and has remained active over the past four years, with discussions about possible sightings, renewed appeals for help, and more.

Ms Lee said while she never gave up hope Sammy would one day come home, even she had trouble believing her long lost dog, now seven years old, had finally been found.

"'Don't get your hopes up' was all I could think," Ms Lee said.

"Deep down I thought it was her straight away, her face and eyes especially but I still had to check for the other things I've always looked for.

"I called her Sammy and she looked straight up and wagged her tail.

"She also buried her head straight into my mum's legs. Same with my aunty Cheryl about an hour later, Sammy always loved her and she got straight up and was so happy to see her."

Ms Lee said Sammy was re-adjusting well to life back at home.

"She's very happy and relaxed just very exhausted," she said.

Sammy was reconnected with her family thanks to some detective work by Lauren, the co-ordinator of a local lost pets Facebook page.

Lauren checked images against reported sightings of a "golden-coloured dog" in the area, and went back through old social media posts to find Ms Lee.

No microchip could be detected, so body markings were used to confirm Sammy's identity.

Sammy left seven young puppies behind when she went missing. ( Supplied )

"Sammy had quite a unique caesarean scar, and she also had a unique number of nipples," Lauren said.

"We've also organised DNA testing just to confirm, but at this stage it's 99.9 per cent certain that it's Sammy."

Pineapples believed to have kept Sammy going in the wild

Sammy was in surprising good health for a domestic pet which had been living in the wild for years.

But she had a gory leg wound which required surgery.

"It looked like an old injury that had been left untreated, it was all infected and not a pretty sight," Lauren said.

"She wasn't as thin as you might expect from a dog who has been living in the wild, and her teeth are in a really bad condition."

Veterinarians believe Sammy survived on a diet of pineapples, scavenged from local farms.

"Her teeth have worn in a similar way to what a wild dog's teeth would have," Lauren said.

"A lot of the wild dogs in that area actually live on the pineapples from the pineapple farms, and the pineapple rots their teeth."

But despite the years, Sammy instantly remembered her owners the second she was called.

"She responded to her name instantly which is quite amazing. And she nuzzled straight into her legs," Lauren said.

Sammy now sports a green cast on her right leg, while her wounds heal.