STOUGHTON - Bear is back home with his family in the Stoughton area, and they are thrilled to have him back.
The three-year-old German shepherd mix gained province-wide attention last month after he was found in Toronto, roughly four months after he disappeared from his owner Konrad Frederickson's farm outside of Stoughton.
"Bear is the sweetest dog. Not a mean bone in his body and happy to see everybody," said Frederickson's close friend Natasha Bigras in an interview with the Mercury and SaskToday back in January.
It turned out Bear had wandered from his home last September and a passing motorist thought Bear was a stray dog. The man didn't want to take him to an animal shelter, so he kept Bear and took him to Toronto, where the dog has been staying with the man's mother.
On Jan. 19, Frederickson received a call from a veterinarian in Toronto, saying they had Bear at their clinic. A microchip enabled the dog to be traced back to Stoughton. Plans then began to bring him home and to reunite him with his family.
A farm family from the Stoughton area that was in Toronto agreed to drive Bear home to his family. He arrived home on Wednesday and Bigras said Bear is doing well.
Bigras noted they received a $3,600 donation from a Stoughton farm family to help with the costs of getting Bear home. The money was used to cover the cost of fuel, and they will likely donate the rest to the Estevan Humane Society.
Bear was eight months old when Frederickson adopted him a couple of years ago, and he had been living at the farm for a couple of years when he vanished. He had quickly became part of the family, Bigras said.
