Incredible Journey

Family Dog Leads Missing Kids To Safety

Further proof that they really are man’s best friend.

There is no greater horror than discovering that your young children have disappeared. That’s exactly what happened to one family in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, on Tuesday, when Hannah Gideon Musgrave, 7, and her brother, Matthew, age 4, vanished in the small town along with their dog.

A whole section of the town closed to business, as police from across the region and volunteers took to the woods with K-9s, infrared displays, helicopters, and night vision equipment, scouring the rugged and remote area. Trains using the nearby tracks were warned to slow down. Four teams split up to cover more ground. Home-schooled and part of a family of nine, fears for the missing duo’s well-being grew greater as the night and then day and then night again wore on.

And then, just as suddenly as they vanished, they were back.

Emerging from the woods just two miles from where they started, the pair was led by the family pup, unharmed save for a few minor scrapes and scratches. Hannah told the local news that they had followed their pet into the darkening woods and gotten lost, then spent the night nestled beneath a nearby cell tower, after which they decided to rely on the dog to see them to safety—a decision that paid off with an all-too-infrequent happy ending.

Go give a dog a hug.

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James Joiner

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