Missing Dog Reunited with Owner on Mother's Day: VIDEO

WESTFORD, MA - Westford resident Mia Pye was devastated when she walked out of a Newton eatery on April 23 and discovered her beloved dog, Freda, was missing from her Jeep.

Pye initially thought Freda had been stolen but a dishwasher in the restaurant said he saw the dog shimmy out of an unzipped part of the Jeep.

Pye thinks Freda must have seen a squirrel or something because it was totally out of character for her to jump out of the car or run away.

Pye spent the next two weeks searching everywhere for Freda. She got help from Missing Dogs Massachusetts and Tracking 4 Paws, an organization that uses a tracking dog to seek out other missing pups.

The tracking dog found Freda's trail in several yards close to where she went missing and there had also been two sightings of her in the area. Pye and members of Tracking 4 Paws set up a trap with a bucket of chicken and infrared cameras in the yard where Freda's scent was the strongest but their only visitor was a big black dog that lived in the neighborhood.

On a rainy night about a week after Freda went missing the resident of an apartment complex off Route 3 in Chelmsford found her soaking wet and shaking near the highway. Freda was scared of the resident, whose name is Cameron, and it took him 15 minutes to get her to come to him.

After Cameron finally earned Freda's trust he brought her inside and dried her off with a towel.

"She was really sad and depressed. She was crying all the time and wouldn't eat, I thought she might have been abused," Cameron told Patch.

Freda most likely hung around in the area where she escaped the car hoping her owner would return and tried to make her own way home after a couple of days.

Cameron called the Chelmsford police but they had not heard of a missing dog.

Cameron's brother is allergic to dogs so after a few days Cameron sent Freda to stay with his friend Matt. About three days later Cameron's mother called him to the computer. When he walked over he saw Freda's face on the screen under a headline about a lost or stolen dog.

Cameron called Pye to tell her he had found her dog over two weeks after Freda had originally gone missing. The two were reunited immediately and it just so happened to be Mother's Day. Cameron said when he called Pye "totally freaked out."

"On the phone I said 'She's a wicked good dog isn't she?" And Cameron said, 'the best dog ever,'" Pye told Patch.

Pye drove over as quickly as she could and was overwhelmed with joy to see her dog sitting there waiting for her.

"It was the best mother's day ever," Pye told Patch.

Freda went crazy at the sight of her long-lost owner; she jumped on Pye and licked her faced all over, wagging her tail furiously.

Pye said she learned from the situation and is grateful that she met so many kind and compassionate people along the way.

"I really was praying so hard and fighting to not give up," Pye told Patch. "There were so many people who came into this situation and helped. You meet the best people through something like this."

Pye said Freda held her hand on the car ride back (see photo above) and passed out as soon as she got home.

See the video of their touching reunion below: