9 Dog Reunions After Years Apart, Including Why Dogs Remember the Scent of Their People

This dog spent years in a shelter before she and her person found each other again. The footage is credited to Silvia Ferreyra and was shared by The Dodo.

“At first this dog didn’t realize that this guy is her long-lost dad — but once she does, she goes WILD.”

“My friend’s dog was so happy she came home from college, he forgot he wasn’t a puppy anymore.”

Scientists have looked inside dogs’ brains for an answer. A 2015 Emory University study scanned the brains of 12 trained dogs while they smelled different scents. A region tied to reward, the caudate, responded most strongly to the scent of a familiar person, and that person didn’t even have to be in the room.

In the researchers’ words, the dogs not only told that scent apart from the others, they had “a positive association with it.”

“I used to look after my friend’s dog Max all the time when he was a pup before they moved away. This is the first time he has seen me in 4 years and he remembered me and went nuts.”

This dog had been lost for 19 months when Saginaw County Animal Care and Control in Michigan reunited her with her family. According to the title of the video, she recognized them by their scent.

“This dog’s reuniting with her family after being lost for 19 months and it’s magic.”

Voices and faces count too. In a 2007 Kyoto University experiment, dogs heard their owner call their name and then saw a face on a screen. They looked longer when the face didn’t match the voice, which suggests they picture the owner’s face when they hear the owner calling.

A 2020 study of 60 pet dogs at the University of Padua found that dogs can recognize their owner’s face even from a photograph.

“I used to walk dogs at a local animal sanctuary in 2015 and my favorite big boy was Chester. I went travelling and when I came back he had been rehomed, I was so happy but a little sad. Today, 4 years later I saw him out walking and look how happy he is 😊”

Giorgi Bereziani, 62, lost his dog Jorge in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2015 and spent years putting up ads and searching the streets. He kept looking the whole time. Three years later, workers at an opera house called him: a dog that looked like Jorge was walking near their building.

“62-year-old Giorgi Bereziani lost his beloved dog named Jorge in 2015. All this time since then, he was trying to find his beloved companion. He was putting up ads, combing the streets, but all without success. Three years later, the workers of an opera house called the desperate man and said that a dog, looking like his dog, was walking near their building. Giorgi immediately went to the scene.”

Dogs may also remember what happened, not only who was there. In a 2016 study from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, dogs trained to copy their owners were unexpectedly asked to repeat an action the owner had shown them earlier. They could recall it after 1 minute and after 1 hour, although their performance dropped with time.

The researchers describe this as episodic-like memory: remembering a specific moment that the dog had no reason to expect it would need later.

“This is Blaze, she’s been my best friend for the past 14 years. She gave me a million kisses when I came home from college. She’s the goodest girl and everyone needs to know:))))”

“I came home from college as a surprise, he was so excited he kept following me around. He wouldn’t even let me use the bathroom.”

“My dog Donald just retired as a seeing eye dog, came home for the first time in 5 years and went straight to his favorite spot.”

We got him from Guiding Eyes for the Blind when he was 8 weeks old. We had to attend training classes for an hour every other Sunday where we practiced basic obedience skills. When the dogs are 1 year old they go to the charity headquarters to be tested to see whether they have what it takes to actually become a seeing eye dog.

If they do, they receive more training and are placed with a blind person. They usually work for about 7 years but Donald wasn’t doing his job properly so he retired early and my family adopted him. He was our second dog from Guiding Eyes so it was easier to give him up but we still missed him and we’re glad to have him back home!

He just wasn’t guiding well, not stopping when he was supposed to, stuff like that.

Luckily his blind person kept in contact and sent us an email updating us almost every month :)

We didn’t get to name him and at first we were like “Uhhh Donald?” But he grew into it, his nickname is Donny :)