Last Friday, the 11-year-old dog, Apollo, was reunited with his family down south, more than a month after he first went missing.

It turns out that the shaggy canine had somehow traveled to Massachusetts from Jacksonville, Fla., more than 1,000 miles away.

When a great Pyrenees mix was found in Swansea in early September, animal shelter workers assumed the stray dog had wandered off from its owners nearby.

“Oh, gosh, if I had been in his head and his eyes — I would have loved to know what he went through,” said Cynthia Abercrombie, Apollo’s owner.

“I’m just so thankful” to have him back, she said in a telephone interview.


Abercrombie said Apollo first disappeared on Aug. 11, when her son was watching the dog for her while she was away. After her son fed and watered Apollo that morning, he went off to work. But when he returned home, Apollo was gone.

Abercrombie said it’s possible that Apollo, a great Pyrenees-St. Bernard mix, had slipped through a hole in the fence on her 1-acre property in Jacksonville, as the dog was known to do from time to time. Normally, Apollo would stick to his haunts, because he’s an old dog that enjoys sleeping and lying around. But this time, for some reason, he didn’t come back.

“Whenever he gets out of the fence line, he only goes down to the end of the road. He hasn’t ventured anywhere,” she said.

As the days passed, and Apollo didn’t return, Abercrombie refused to give up hope. She felt in her gut that the dog was out there, somewhere.

“I knew he was alive still, but I had no idea where he was at,” she said. “I didn’t have that sinking feeling that he was completely gone. I knew something was wrong.”


After some time went by, Abercrombie said she remembered that her late husband had the dog fitted with a microchip. After sifting through old paperwork, she found the information she needed to get the chip reactivated.

More time passed, with no sign of Apollo anywhere. Then, on Sept. 9, she received a phone call from a place she never imagined her beloved pet would end up — far away in Massachusetts.

“I was speechless. I was shocked,” Abercrombie said.

Lisa White, part-time animal control officer in Swansea, said when officers found Apollo on Sept. 8, they assumed the dog was from the area.

Animal control officers posted a message on Facebook, alerting people about the lost pet. After they looked up information on the dog’s microchip, they realized how wrong they were about Apollo’s origins.

“It’s strange,” said White in a telephone interview. “We thought maybe [Abercrombie] was up here visiting, and he got loose. When we called her, we said, ‘We Have Apollo here at the shelter.’ And she said, ‘Where are you calling from?’”

When the animal shelter told Abercrombie, “Massachusetts,” the dog owner went silent, said White.

“It took a minute for her to process, and her next words were, ‘How the heck did he get up there?’” said White.

Apollo’s “incredible journey” remains a mystery. Both Abercrombie and White believe the dog may have been taken by someone and then driven up to the Bay State. It’s possible that once Apollo was here, he again got loose, or was abandoned. Neither Abercrombie nor White believe the dog walked all the way up the coast, due to his old age. Abercrombie also said she had never been to Massachusetts.


“Had she not had her dog microchipped, and kept the information current, she never would have found him again,” said White. “She wouldn’t have thought to look in Massachusetts, and we wouldn’t have thought to look down in Florida.”

Although Apollo had been located, the process to get him home to his family remained an obstacle. But after Swansea animal shelter employees posted to Facebook a message asking for help, East Coast Paws Transport, a non-profit that works with shelters to ship pets with the help of volunteer drivers, stepped up to the plate.

Apollo, a bit on the skinny side after his adventure, finally arrived in Jacksonville Friday, thanks to the group, Abercrombie said.

“If it hadn’t been for East Coast, I would not have been able to get him back,” Abercrombie said. “It took him a while to realize he was home. Once his tail wagged, you could tell he knew he was with us.”

Oh, and that hole in the fence? It’s been repaired.

Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.