A 1-year-old Australian shepherd took an epic trek across 150 miles of frozen Bering Sea ice that included being bitten by a seal or polar bear before he was safely returned to his home in Alaska.
According to his dog mom, Mandy Iworrigan, Nanuq, which is Siberian Yupik for polar bear, was visiting the St. Lawrence Island city of Savoogna with his owners in March when he vanished along with another pup, Starlight.
Starlight eventually returned to the family around two weeks later, but Nanuq was nowhere to be seen. The family headed back home to Gambell, 37 miles north of Savoogna, in conviction their beloved Nanuq was gone forever.
It wasn’t until another family member uploaded a Facebook photo of a missing dog, who resembled Nanuq, that Iworrigan discovered her pup miraculously crossed the freezing Bering Sea and made a more than 100-mile trek north to Wales.
Iworrigan videotaped the wonderful reunion between the pup and her daughter on April 6.