HOWELL -- A starving, bleeding dog found at a New Jersey truck stop will be reunited with her family two years after someone snatched her from her a Long Island home and may have used her to transport drugs.

Brittney DiBartolo had finished putting food on the grill at her Mastic Beach, New York home in May 2015 when one of her dogs began barking in the yard.

She and her family lived on a corner lot. Her hound, Dallas, had been on a chain. Cali, her Rhodesian ridgeback mix, was free in the yard.

"He (Dallas) kept barking," DiBartolo said. "I didn't understand what he was barking at but he's a big hound so he's got that dark howl, like a houndish-type bark."

She brought him inside, but didn't realize Cali hadn't come too. It wasn't until Dallas began barking again that DiBartolo noticed Cali was nowhere to be found.

She called out Cali's name. She and her husband, Larry, searched the house and scoured the yard.

"Something's wrong," she said.

They searched the area nonstop for 24 hours, asking neighbors if they'd seen Cali. Their search came up empty.

"Could barely sleep that night," Brittney DiBartolo said. "Kept constantly getting up. I'm thinking I'm hearing her tap at the front door because that's what she used to do to come in. So I'm like she's back! Let me go look and let her in. But there was nothing outside."

Over the next several days the DiBartolos posted on Facebook pages for local lost and found shelters. They called local veterinary offices thinking someone might have brought Cali in. Still nothing.

The DiBartolos moved to Raleigh, N.C. in the summer of 2016. They kept Cali's collar in a padded envelope to remember her, hoping one day they'd see her again.

Last month, Stuart Goldman, president of Broken Promises Sanctuary in Monmouth County, was asleep when he received a call in the middle of the night from a family friend.

The woman said her daughter was with a crowd of people huddled around an emaciated dog at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop in Pilesgrove, Salem County.

"Bring her up," Goldman, 68, told her. "You give a dog like this to animal control they're just going to kill it."

The brownish-orange dog - just 30 pounds at the time - was brought to the Broken Promises farm in Howell Township, said Anita Innamorata-Stout, vice president and managing caretaker of the organization. The nonprofit takes in older, abused or unwanted animals.

"She was nothing but a bag of bones," Innamorata-Stout said. "She was limp. She was staggering when she tried to walk. She was dehydrated."

Goldman said the 5-year-old dog had lived "a tortured life."

"There's no question she was stolen," he said. "She was neglected. You could tell. She was in rough shape."

Goldman and Innamorata-Stout said dogs are often used as drug mules.

"They drive around, see a dog on the front porch and boom. Snatch the dog. Nasty business," Goldman said.

This Rhodesian ridgeback had a weird, long scar on her belly, Innamorata-Stout said, and had loose skin, making her ideal for transporting drugs, which can be inserted underneath the skin.

The dog received emergency veterinary care, blood tests, x-rays, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, fluids and food.

"This dog was all but dead," Goldman said.

A microchip on the dog's back revealed she had a name: Cali.

Brittney DiBartolo was making breakfast when a number popped up on her phone that she didn't recognize. She let it go.

The number called back several more times, finally leaving a voicemail.

"It was Anita saying hey, we found your dog," Brittney DiBartolo said.

Confused, she looked at Dallas, who was sitting at the foot of her bed. When she called back, Innamorata-Stout told her they had Cali.

"What do you mean you have Cali? It's not possible you have Cali," DiBartolo said. "Cali's been missing two years."

She was stunned.

"I just burst into tears. I didn't know what to think or what to do. I was just in such shock and dismay."

Though Cali was regaining her strength at the farm, staff noticed her nose continued to ooze blood and a green discharge. A CAT scan revealed she had a tumor in her nasal cavity and sinus. Adenocarcinoma.

No veterinarian would take her, Goldman said, save for one: Veterinary Cyberknife Cancer Center in Malvern, Pa. Cali received intensive radiation for three days.

"She came out like a whole new dog," Innamorata-Stout said. "Tail wagging. Happy. She jumped right in the car."

The tumor is shrinking, she said, and will continue dying for months.

In all, Cali's treatments cost nearly $19,000, Goldman said. Broken Promises has raised about $7,000 for the bills.

Cali is recovering at the sanctuary and is up to 60 pounds now.

"Her eyes sunk back in her sockets. She's got energy. She's running all over the place. She eats like a horse," Goldman said.

The DiBartolos tentatively plan to pick Cali up on June 4 and bring her to their home in North Carolina.

Goldman estimates she'll be able to live for another couple years.

A GoFundMe campaign has been created to help with her medical bills. Donations are tax-deductible.