Dog reunites with Tarboro family after appearance on WRAL-TV

When George and Lauren Jenkins' other dog passed away about a year ago, they said Brinkley was bored and seemed depressed.

"I said, 'Well, I'm out at the farm all day, it just makes more sense for him to stay out at the farm,'" said George Jenkins. "He loved it. He played with cows every day and swam."

Brinkley moved from the family home to their farm off N.C. Highway 258. The Jenkins' said he roamed during the day and slept in the barn at night, until one day in July when he disappeared.

"He went off, and it was around lunchtime when we were like, 'Where could he be?'" George Jenkins said. "Next thing you know, we were driving all around looking for him."

He said the dog had a limp, and they thought he wandered away to die. Three months later, the family saw Brinkley featured on the WRAL.com Pets section.

"I was just messing around on my iPad when I looked and saw, ‘That's our dog,’" George Jenkins said.

Animal control had apparently picked up Brinkley a few days after he went missing and dropped him off at the Edgecombe County Animal Shelter.

Workers at the animal shelter reached out to the Neuse River Golden Retriever Rescue to see if they could possibly help. The group lined up a foster family in Cary who cleaned him up and gave him the name Lucky.

Reunited now for two weeks, the Jenkins family says they are all lucky.

"I think it's a miracle," Lauren Jenkins said.

Neuse River Golden Retriever Rescue was able to microchip Brinkley and give him new name tags.

Moving forward, the Jenkins family said they will definitely microchip future family pets.

Officials with the Neuse River Golden Retriever Rescue said this was the first time they have reunited a dog with their family from the WRAL Pet of the Day segment.