Relieved dog owner Terri Pittman has been reunited with her labradoodle after what was supposed to be a short flight turned into a nightmare that lasted days. On Wednesday, she sent Cooper to stay with relatives while she went to a wedding in Jamaica—but instead of putting the dog on its flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Deer Lake, Newfoundland, WestJet put the dog on the wrong flight and it ended up in Hamilton, Ontario, more than 1,000 miles away in the wrong direction, the CBC reports. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Cooper slipped his leash and ran away after airport workers in Hamilton took him outside to pee.
Pittman flew to Hamilton when she found out about the mix-up and searched the fields around the airport for Cooper, joined by many local volunteers who had heard about the search on social media. After a night of torrential rains, residents spotted Cooper around a mile away from the airport, Friday morning, the Hamilton Spectator reports. In a Facebook post, Pittman says it was a "wonderful feeling" to be reunited with Cooper after two terrible days. She says she was overwhelmed by the response. "The fact that strangers I did not know or had even met ... were out looking for him at night through morning, or messaging me to see how they could help is simply amazing," she says. (More dog stories.)