More than a decade after going missing, a Philly dog found its way home

Jourdyn Koviack fell in love on May 25, 2012, on an unremarkable street corner in Frankford.

She was 16, a high school junior. He was two months old, white with a smattering of black spots and soulful eyes — and when she saw him for sale on the side of the street, she couldn’t help herself. He cost $200, and she used the money from her job at a local tanning salon. She brought him home on the bus, a pit bull pup tucked into her sweatshirt.

Her boyfriend at the time, a gun enthusiast, named him Forty-Cal — Forty, for short — and from the start, she and the dog were inseparable.

When he was a puppy, she’d carry him around in her purse. When she got her first car, Forty always rode shotgun. He loved pup cups and hot dogs. She created an Instagram page for him, and took photo after photo — Forty dressed as a rock star for Halloween, Forty wearing a party hat on his first birthday.

Her family had always had pets. But Forty was the first one that felt like hers.

“Forty filled every void I ever had,” Koviack says. “[He taught me] tolerance and patience and responsibility and love.”

“To me, at 16 years old, he was my entire world.”

For three years, it was bliss.

And then, in the spring of 2015, Forty vanished.

Koviack had just returned from the grocery store when she realized he was missing. He’d been in the backyard of her family’s house in Mayfair, along with another family dog. The gate was open, though she was sure she’d closed it.

Both of the dogs were gone.

In the days and weeks that followed, Koviack hung hundreds of posters around the city with Forty’s photo.

“LOST DOG!”

“EXTREMELY FRIENDLY!”

She promised a reward and flooded Facebook with pleas for help.

People were eager to assist. Her online posts were shared again and again. Some sent in photos of dogs they were certain were Forty.

But each time, they would have different markings or the wrong color eyes.

“People kept saying to me, ‘Well, lights can be deceiving,’” Koviack says. “[But] I knew Forty’s markings from a mile away.”

The family eventually found its other missing dog on Craigslist, where someone was trying to sell it; the police helped them get it back.

But they never did find Forty.

Years passed.

A pandemic came and went.

The Eagles won a Super Bowl, then another.

Koviack got married, moved out of Philadelphia, got another pit bull and named it King.

But she never forgot about Forty.

She talked about him often. She kept his Instagram page active. Even after moving two hours outside of Philadelphia, to Luzerne County, she’d sometimes go online and look at old Facebook posts, checking for new leads.

“Everything would remind me of him,” she says. “Driving by a dog with a spot on his eye, hot dogs, pit bulls...”

Two months ago — more than a decade after Forty had gone missing — it occurred to her to call the microchip company again, after years of calling to no avail. (She’d had Forty microchipped shortly after getting him.)

No luck.

She was not naive; she knew that Forty, who by now would’ve been 13, had likely passed. She updated her contact information with the microchip company anyway.

Just in case.

The Animal Care & Control Team of Philadelphia is a constant flurry of activity.

An average of 22 dogs are brought into the group’s shelter each day, and more than 7,000 come through annually — numbers that have increased in recent years.

Last Saturday night, a white dog with black spots arrived at its Hunting Park Avenue headquarters.

It had cozied up to a girl playing in the street, apparently, and her family had brought it inside, feeding it as they notified animal control.

When an officer arrived to pick up the dog and transport it to the ACCT shelter, he discovered it was microchipped. And when he checked an online registry, a phone number came back for a woman in Luzerne County.

Koviack, now 30, was leaving the trampoline park with her family when the phone rang. When the man identified himself as an animal control officer, her first thought was that King, her new pit bull, had somehow gotten out.

But then, the officer was saying something about Forty.

“We have your boy,” he said.

A prank, she figured.

“Send me pictures,” she said. “I don’t believe you.”

The officer obliged.

“That’s my f— dog!” she screamed.

She wanted to go get him that night but was told she’d have to wait until the following morning. So she spent a sleepless night searching for the best ways to care for an older dog — which food is best, what kinds of beds are most comfortable.

The next morning, she and her husband and kids made the trek to the Philadelphia shelter, where they were ushered into a small room. “I can’t believe it,” everyone kept saying.

Eventually, a dog sauntered in.

His black spots were now flecked with gray. He seemed a bit confused.

But there was no question: It was Forty.

In the days since their reunion, Koviack and Forty have been doing their best to make up for lost time. He follows her around the house wherever she goes. He sleeps with her son, who was just a month old when Forty went missing.

The other night, she lay with him in his dog bed, just staring at him.

“It’s like a part of my childhood came back,” she says.

Left unanswered, of course, is where the dog has been for the past decade.

According to the shelter, he had been well cared for in recent years — he was clean when they found him, with trimmed nails.

But beyond that, there are few clues.

“There’s no way to be certain,” said Sarah Barnett, executive director at ACCT Philly. But realistically, she said, “someone probably stole him, realized he was neutered, and then gave him away or whatever.”

Back in Luzerne County, meanwhile, Koviack is still struggling to fathom how all this played out.

“I keep looking over at the couch,” she said the other day, “just to make sure he’s still there.”