Pepper, a 7-year- old Golden Retriever, disappeared last Christmas out of his Buckhead (GA) home.

While his owner’s, Liz and Stephen Carter, were away on vacation  Pepper  simply vanished into thin air.

All that changed when the Carters’ got a phone call last month.

“Do you have a dog named Pepper?” the stranger asked. “Yes. But we lost him on Dec. 23.”

“I have him,” the man replied.

The bigger shock: The call came from St. Petersburg, Fla., 425 miles from the Carters’ home.

“I was speechless,” Carter recalled Saturday. “I didn’t know what to do first.”

It’s not clear where Pepper was for nine months or how he got to Florida. Stephen and Liz Carter have no friends or relatives in the St. Petersburg area.

Pepper had walked into Jay Getman’s travel agency last month. Being a dog lover, Getman took a filthy flea ridden Pepper home to clean him up. A few days later he took him to the vet where the microchip was found, providing the Carters’ information.

After the phone call Liz Carter took a road trip to go pick-up Pepper and bring him home, where a very happy reunion ensued.

Back at home on West Paces Ferry Road, “he steals shoes and leaves them in exactly the same places he used to,” Liz Carter said, noting that Pepper got a clean bill of health at the vet last week. “It’s uncanny how he’s gotten back into normal life. He never missed a beat.”

Believing their beloved Pepper was gone for good, the Carters’  had adopted another Golden Retriever rescue into the family.  Now they have two wonderful dogs to love.  I wonder if they named this one Salt?

Any Dogsters out there have a lost and found story?  Give me a bark.