Seven years ago, the unthinkable happened to Brittany Simpson and her family. Their beloved  dog, Ruger, went missing from their front yard at home — the victim of an apparent dog-napping.

“We searched for a good month after he went missing,” Simpson wrote in a post, adding that Ruger had been microchipped. But their searches turned up nothing.

Sadly, as the years went by, Ruger was never to be seen again.

That is, until recently.

Last week, Simpson was browsing Facebook when she ran across a photo that made her gasp. The photo was that of a  dog posted to a local “lost/found pet” forum by a Good Samaritan named Rebecca.

A few hours earlier, Rebecca had found the dog wandering on her property in poor condition. She’d hoped his family would recognize him — not knowing just how long ago it was that they’d last seen him.

Simpson was stunned.

“I immediately saw him and my heart dropped!” Simpson told The Dodo. “I was like, ‘That looks so much like my dog.’”

The dog was older than she’d ever known Ruger to be, of course, but the found dog had all the telltale markings that Simpson had remembered.

“I believe this is my dog,” Simpson wrote in a comment on Rebecca’s post. “He’s been missing 7 years!”

She posted a photo as proof.

Excitement swirled as the truth unraveled — the missing dog was Ruger.

“[Rebecca] took him to the vet,” Simpson said. “I got a call about an hour later from the microchip agency and he was mine!”

Simpson raced to the vet to finally reunite with the pup whom she once thought she’d never see again.

Before Ruger had gone missing, he was a beloved companion to Simpson’s small children. Though they’d grown a lot since then, he’d never left their hearts.

Simpson recorded the moment that she broke the news to them that he was no longer just a memory:

Now, Ruger is back at home, slowly reacclimatizing to life with his loving family. His whereabouts for all those years remain unknown, but an untreated skin condition he was found to be suffering from suggests that he wasn’t a priority to whoever had been keeping him.

“He’s getting back to normal now,” Simpson said.