{"id":319484,"date":"2026-06-25T15:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/319484\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:45:09","slug":"missing-florida-dog-found-over-1000-miles-away-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/319484\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Florida dog found over 1,000 miles away"},"content":{"rendered":"

OCALA, Fla. \u2013 A Marion County family is preparing for a reunion after their missing dog was found more than 1,000 miles away in New York nearly two months after disappearing, as reported by our sister station WKMG in Orlando<\/a>.<\/p>\n

News 6 first told you about Apollo in May after his family reached out through the News 6 Neighborhood Network for help finding the 13-year-old dog.<\/p>\n

Apollo disappeared on April 25 after surveillance video showed a white car stop near the family\u2019s home. The family said a woman got out, asked neighbors if the dog belonged to them, and drove away after they said no.<\/p>\n

At the time, the Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office determined no crime had occurred.<\/p>\n

This week, Apollo\u2019s owner, Vera Josey, received an email from the dog\u2019s microchip company, HomeAgain, notifying her that Apollo\u2019s microchip had been scanned at an animal shelter in Hempstead on Long Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019m speaking to her, I\u2019m noticing the accent,\u201d Josey said. \u201cShe said New York. So Apollo was in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelter staff told the family Apollo had been found wandering the streets by a good Samaritan, who took him to a local police station before he was transferred to the shelter.<\/p>\n

Josey said she was also surprised to learn Apollo had been wearing a tag with a different name.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe goes, \u2018But he has a tag called Yuri,\u2019\u201d Josey said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, no, his name\u2019s not Yuri.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family plans to reunite with Apollo Friday. Josey\u2019s husband will fly to New York while a relative who lives nearby picks Apollo up from the shelter and meets him at John F. Kennedy International Airport for the trip home.<\/p>\n

The family estimates flights, shelter fees and other costs to bring Apollo home will total around $1,000 and has started a GoFundMe to help cover the expenses.<\/p>\n

News 6 also reached back out to the Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office to ask whether Apollo being found in New York changes its earlier determination that no crime had occurred. As of publication, the agency had not responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still would like to know who that person was that took him because it\u2019s costing us to get him back,\u201d Josey said.<\/p>\n

Despite the unanswered questions, the family says they\u2019re simply grateful Apollo is coming home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just excited,\u201d Josey said. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t wait for him to get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OCALA, Fla. \u2013 A Marion County family is preparing for a reunion after their missing dog was found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,3833,132694,2965],"class_list":["post-319484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-marion-county","tag-missing-dog","tag-pets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}