The Incredible Story Of Nanuq, An Australian Shepherd Who Went Missing In Alaska And Was Found After Traveling Over 100 Miles From Home

SCStock - stock.adobe.com-  illustrative purposes only
SCStock - stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only

There is no worse feeling than losing your pet. But some pet owners get lucky, and amazingly, their fur babies make it home safely!

While many people sometimes have small incidents where their cat or dog only goes missing for a few minutes or hours before returning home, some animals decide to go on quite the journey.

Nanuq, a one-year-old Australian Shepherd from Alaska, recently frightened his family after he went missing in March. Then, miraculously, he was found after traveling over 100 miles.

Nanuq belongs to the Iworrigan family from Gambell, Alaska. They recently visited the city of Savoonga on Saint Lawrence Island, where Nanuq went missing and ran off with their other dog, Starlight.

Starlight was found in the next town over and was brought home weeks later, but Nanuq stayed missing for an entire month.

Then, Mandy’s Dad sent her a Facebook post, saying there was a dog who looked just like Nanuq found in the city of Wales, a whopping 166 miles from home. Mandy reactivated her Facebook page to see what was going on.

A user posted photos of the dog, writing, ” Lol, we don’t know [whose] dog this is, we’ve never seen it here in Wales before.”

Sure enough, after looking at the pictures, Mandy realized it was Nanuq. This means for a month, Nanuq traveled 166 miles through the Alaskan wilderness before he was found.

Wales resident Michael Edward Ahkinga Jr. saw Nanuq outside his parent’s house. The day he found him, his family dogs ran to the beach and brought Nanuq back with them.

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Nanuq stayed with his kind rescuers for days while they communicated with Mandy and tried to find a way to get him back home. There are no direct flights from Wales to Saint Lawrence Island, so they were able to borrow a charter plane that was used for a school to transport Nanuq back home in a crate.

Nanuq’s reunion with his family was joyous as Mandy captured her young daughter’s gleeful reaction in a Facebook livestream.

“Nanuq is my daughter’s dog,” explained Mandy in her livestream.

“She got him for his birthday last year. Thank you, Michael, for taking care of him.”

Once Nanuq was home, Mandy and her family did notice that he had some mysterious bite marks from an unknown animal. Thankfully, he will be okay and is receiving the medical attention he needs, in addition to lots of love.

What a journey Nanuq had!

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