Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog’s chip reunites with him after 11 years

When Jourdyn Koziak got a call on Saturday from a man who claimed that her long-lost dog had been found, she thought he was playing a “sick prank.”

That’s because her beloved pit bull, Forty-Cal, had been missing for 11 years. 

“I said to him, ‘This is a prank. It’s not funny,'” Koziak told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “He said, ‘No ma’am, we have your dog.'”

Then, the staff at Animal Care and Control Team (ACCT) Philly sent her some pics of the pooch in question.

“Immediately, I could remember his markings from a mile away,” she said. “That’s him.”

She never stopped updating his chip

Koziak hadn’t seen Forty-Cal since he disappeared, along with her family’s second dog, from the backyard of her former home in Philadelphia.

The other dog turned up not long after, but Forty-Cal never returned. Koziak has always suspected he was stolen from the yard.

In the intervening years, Koziak has gotten married, had a new child, and moved to Luzerne County, Penn.

Still, she never stopped updating Forty-Cal’s microchip with her information. 

“I never gave up hope because, obviously, I’m relentless,” she said.

It was a little girl in Philadelphia who found him, Koziak said.

“He’s super docile and friendly. Always has been. And he walked right up to her. He made a friend,” Koziak said.

“She brought him into the house with her parents and they made him some hotdogs. They could not keep him because they have another animal. So they called Animal Control.”

ACCT Philly scanned the chip, she says, and the rest is history. 

“This reunion is emotional and inspiring, but it’s also an important reminder: microchipping your pet is one of the simplest and most effective ways to help ensure they can find their way back home,” ACCT Philly spokesperson Mikayla Allen said in an email.

The big reunion

When Koziak drove to Philadelphia on Sunday to get Forty-Cal, she took her family with her, including her three kids. Her hands were shaking with anticipation, she said, and she was reeling with a whirlwind of emotions. 

But when she saw her dog coming down the hall toward her, that all stopped.

“I no longer was hearing anyone. I had tunnel vision. The world, everything, the room just shut down around me,” she said. “The spotlight was on him and nobody else was around.”

Shelter staff warned her the dog might be overwhelmed at first, and it could take him a while to recognize his old family, so they approached him cautiously. 

“We put our hands out, he sniffed us, and then proceeded to pull us towards the door, like, ‘Let’s go,'” she said.

‘It’s like Christmas morning every day’

Forty-Cal was sick and sleepy for the first day, she says, but now he’s “back to his normal self,” and seems happy as can be.

“He acts like he’s a puppy again,” she said. “He wants to go for a walk. He’s wagging his tail.”

It’s been a joy, she says, integrating him into her new life.

“I had other animals in the house, as well, that were family pets, but Forty was my dog,” she said. “I paid for him with my own money at 16 years old.”

She says sometimes, late at night, she becomes distressed thinking of all the time that she’s lost with her dog.

But when she wakes in the morning and sees him there, it melts away. 

“I’m over the moon,” she said. “It’s like Christmas morning every day.”