Meet Abby, the Dog Who Returned From the Dead

'It feels like a part of my kids’ childhood is back, part of our family is back'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 3, 2018 2:21 PM CST
Given up for Dead, Family's Dog Returns After 10 Years
Abby looks up while waiting for the arrival of her owner at Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley on Jan. 30, 2018.   (Nate Smallwood/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via AP)

As far as Debra Suierveld is concerned, Abby pulled a Lazarus. “We thought she had passed away,” Suierveld tells KDKA. “It feels like a part of my kids’ childhood is back, part of our family is back." Abby, a black lab mix, wandered off from Suierveld's home in Pennsylvania 10 years ago, and the family searched for their missing pup to no avail, the Valley News Dispatch reports. But last weekend Abby showed back up like nothing had happened. Suierveld says Abby still answers to her name and even remembers the commands she and her daughter taught her. Suierveld says her now-22-year-old daughter cried when she heard Abby had, improbably, returned home.

Judy Spiering called Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley on Jan. 27 when a friendly but very thirsty black lab mix turned up on her porch 10 miles from the Suierveld home in Apollo. A microchip in Abby's neck led to Suierveld's vet, who had Abby listed as deceased, and then to Suierveld. Suierveld couldn't believe it. "I didn't even know what to say," she says, adding, “She kind of came back from the dead.” But no one can figure out where Abby has spent the past decade. "She's a good weight. She's very well taken care of," says Jody Berisko at Animal Protectors. "It's very weird." Whoever Abby was with, Suierveld admits "they took good care of her." The family planned to host a giant welcome-home dinner for their long-lost pooch. (More uplifting news stories.)

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