New York dog trekked 2,000km to Florida

SEFFNER ( Florida): Eighteen months after Sinatra the brown and white Husky disappeared from his home in New York, he ended up wandering in a Florida neighbourhood where 13-year-old Rose Verrill took him in.

Turns out, Sinatra once belonged to 16-year-old Zion Willis, who died in a gun accident in Brooklyn, New York, in 2015.

He’ll be reunited with her family in Baltimore on Sunday.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that while the dog has been found, no one knows how it travelled 1,931km from New York to Seffner, which is near Tampa.

But this much is known. Sinatra was a 14th birthday gift for Zion, who was an avid dancer and an animal lover.

The blue-eyed dog loved to chase raccoons and squirrels, the teen’s father told the newspaper.

One day, a year-and-a-half after Zion’s death, the dog never came home. Some 18 months passed before the Florida teen found Sinatra near her home.

The Verills and family friend Jeanne Baldi started trying to find Sinatra’s owners. They turned to the Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center, which came up with a possible name – Willis Les.

That’s when Baldi took to social media. She reached out to Lesmore Willis with the information she had.

“I never would have thought he was from Brooklyn,” Baldi said.

“I messaged Lesmore over Facebook and didn’t think it would lead to anything when I saw where he was from.”