OCALA, Fla. \u2013 A Marion County family is celebrating after their missing dog finally made it home Friday, ending a journey that took him more than 1,000 miles away to Long Island, New York.<\/p>\n
Apollo, a 13-year-old dog, disappeared from his family\u2019s home in April. After months of searching with no answers, his owners were stunned to learn this week that he had been found at a police station on Long Island.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Apollo\u2019s owner, Nicholas Josey, flew to New York to bring him home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no doubt the whole time he\u2019d make it back home,\u201d Josey told News 6. \u201cIt\u2019s just mind-blowing he was already in New York. He went to New York before any of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apollo greets the Josey’s daughter as he returned home on Friday. (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
Back in Ocala, Apollo wasted little time settling back into family life. He greeted relatives, checked on his favorite toys, reunited with the Joseys\u2019 1-year-old daughter, and met newborn Nicholas Jr., who was born while Apollo was missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait for those two to get acclimated with one another,\u201d Vera Josey said. \u201cWe\u2019ll get back to the routine of saying, \u2018Come on Apollo, we\u2019ve gotta do this,\u2019 and he\u2019d tap tap tap.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Apollo is finally home, the family says they\u2019re still trying to figure out how he ended up in New York.<\/p>\n
The Joseys say they\u2019ve been doing some sleuthing of their own and believe they found a social media post from Long Island showing a dog they are convinced is Apollo. They hope that information could help identify the person they believe picked Apollo up after he disappeared.<\/p>\n
The Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office previously determined it did not have evidence that a crime had occurred. However, in a statement to News 6, the agency said if additional information comes forward pointing to criminal intent in Apollo\u2019s disappearance, deputies would investigate.<\/p>\n
The sheriff\u2019s office also said it had not yet received any additional information from the family. The Joseys told News 6 they plan to contact investigators and share what they\u2019ve found.<\/p>\n
For now, though, the family is focused on celebrating Apollo\u2019s return \u2014 just in time for his upcoming 14th birthday in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll have a party,\u201d Vera Josey said. \u201cHe\u2019ll have a party. We\u2019ll do a party.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OCALA, Fla. \u2013 A Marion County family is celebrating after their missing dog finally made it home Friday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[107371,107369,107373,107367,107365,107363,107374,107362,107370,107366,9,11,10,107368,107364,107372],"class_list":["post-279480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-apollo-the-dog","tag-dog-birthday","tag-dog-found-in-new-york","tag-dog-returns-home","tag-dog-reunion","tag-family-dog-returns","tag-florida-missing-dog","tag-long-island-found-dog","tag-marion-county-family","tag-marion-county-missing-dog","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-pet-mystery","tag-pet-recovery-journey","tag-pet-reunion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}