Missing Dog Reunited With Family After 2 Years Thanks to Chance Encounter at Shelter

— -- They say every dog has its day, and for this pup named Buddy, April 13 was his.

Buddy was reunited with his owners, April and Cory Cromer, of Easley, South Carolina, thanks to a chance encounter at a local animal shelter two years after he was went missing.

“April was over at Cherrydale shopping center next to our shelter and she was meeting a friend and killing some time so she came over here to look at the animals,” Paula Church, the community relations coordinator at Greenville County Animal Care, told ABC News. “Their dog had been missing for two years and they spent a year searching for him.”

The dog had apparently gone missing two years ago when the Cromers were moving.

“We put posters up everywhere,” April told ABC affiliate WHNS.

“After about a year, I said, ‘He’s a good dog. Somebody’s got him,’” Cory added.

The family had given up hope of finding their sweet Buddy, but fate had other plans.

On April 5, Church said an animal control officer found Buddy “running at large” in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and was brought into the Greenville County Animal Care shelter.

“He hadn’t even been here that long,” she added.

As April was strolling through the shelter, checking out the animals while she waited to meet her friend, a familiar face caught her attention.

“I was like 'No way,'” she told WHNS of the shocking discovery. “Then I looked again and was like, ‘Buddy Jack?’ and he just started jumping.”

April brought her husband back the next day to make sure it was definitely Buddy.

“At first the dog was a little timid but then they started asking him to do his tricks and the dog did it, and at that point they realized it was him, and Buddy realized these were his people,” Church said of the reunion. “The way he reacted...and the hugs and kisses from the puppy was just all really sweet. It’s so cool when those reunions happen.”

No one knows where Buddy had been for the past two years, but “he didn’t appear to be malnourished,” said Church.

“He was in pretty good condition,” she added, which furthers the mystery of where long-lost Buddy was living.

As for the Cromers, “They are just over the moon to have their dog back,” Church said.