A Florida family was reunited with their beloved dog after six years apart this week and said the whole experience has been "a dream come true."
Lisa Nicholson, her husband, and two of her children traveled over 200 miles from St. Cloud, Florida, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to reunite with their beloved German shepherd Bella again.
"Bella was microchipped. And so anybody out there that does not believe that they work, they truly, truly work," Nicholson told ABC News. "That was how [the police] were able to locate us, through the microchip, because they had all of our information."
Bella was picked up by Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue firefighters on Aug. 5.
Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue public information officer Frank Guzman told ABC News that first responders received a 911 call Tuesday about a "loose dog who had been roaming around [and] ended up in a canal and couldn't get out."
"Our firefighters from Engine 47 arrived on scene and made contact with the dog. She was very docile and obviously exhausted," Guzman said.
After firefighters brought Bella back to the firehouse, Guzman said Fort Lauderdale police determined the dog had a microchip and had been adopted out of Broward County Animal Care in 2018. Police then worked to track down the family, he said, and eventually located Nicholson, a mom of six.
Nicholson told ABC News she and her family had to give Bella to a friend months after she was adopted, after a house fire forced them to move.
"We lost everything. We lost our clothes. We lost everything that the house had inside of it," Nicholson said. "And so, we had to live in a hotel for a period of three months, and during that time, that's when we had to decide where Bella was going to go, and so we decided to let Bella go with a friend."
Nicholson said after a while, they learned the friend had given Bella away, and they lost contact with Bella altogether.
But earlier this week, Nicholson said her 18-year-old daughter Liberty told her she had a dream about Bella, and then she received a phone call from the Fort Lauderdale Police about Bella.
"I just said, 'This has got to be God here,' because … my daughter has a dream, and then all of a sudden the dog appears after about six years? Like, it's a dream come true," said Nicholson.
Now, Nicholson said she's hoping to give "sweet" Bella the world.
"I feel like she's been through so much and I feel like this is like a second chance at life," said Nicholson. "She'll be treated just like us. When we get steak, she's going to get steak. When we get a new shirt, Bella is getting a new outfit."
She added, "I want people to understand that when people are able to get their dogs back [after] any situation, don't think bad of them, because we suffered too. We were heartbroken too, but now our hearts have been mended."
