ST GEORGE, Utah (ABC4) – One random stranger helped a St. George family find their missing dogs nearly 200 miles from home. 

The Hebner family owns three French Bulldogs and on June 18th, two of them – Stitch and Ella – escaped and ran away. 

“The night they went missing was the night of my birthday,” Whitney Hebner said. “We were driving around the neighborhood till 3 in the morning looking for them.”

Hebner made fliers and posted on social media asking the community to keep watch for her dogs, but after a few days, she still had no leads. 

Later that week, the Hebners went on their previously planned vacation. It was there they finally heard some news.

“We get a call while we’re on vacation in California from a guy named Tony,” Hebner said. 

Tony Fish was staying at Southern Utah Luxury RV Resort in St George when he said he saw two dogs with a couple that caught his attention. 

“A guy pulled up in an F-150 and picked up the dogs weirdly…backwards, so no one could see them and put them in the truck,” Fish said. “I was like, ‘Ok, that was weird.’” 

At the time, Fish had no idea the dogs were missing. It was the next day when he was driving through town when he said he made the connection. Fish told ABC4 he saw one of the Hebner’s missing posters on a stop sign.

“I jumped out of my car and grabbed it because I recognized the dogs,” he said.

Fish reached out to the number on the sign and spoke with Whitney Hebner. Hebner said she called the RV Resort to try and get the names of all the guests but they weren’t able to give it to her. Her next step was to call the police.

“I didn’t want to give up,” Hebner said. “I just kept saying, ‘We’re going to find them and it might be hard but we’re just gonna have hope.’”

After Hebner spoke with police, officers tracked down the couple Tony saw at the RV Park. Whitney learned that the couple found Elsa and Stitch wandering the roads. They said they thought the dogs were lost, so they took them home to Pahrump, Nevada.

One week since Elsa and Stitch went missing and 184 miles from home, on the Hebner’s way back to Utah from California, they got their dogs back. 

“It was just so much relief, so happy to see my girls so excited to see them again and that they were home, they were safe, they were healthy,” Hebner said. “We’re so lucky.” 

Tony Fish, the random stranger that helped reunite a family, says it’s all “pretty insane.” 

“I believe what goes around comes around,” he said. “If we do something and we try and look out for each other, it’s just better for all of us.”

The Hebners say they’re grateful.

“I’m so blessed to live in such a great community where everyone is just so great at helping and caring about everybody else,” said Hebner. “We’re so lucky.”

Whitney Hebner said they tried to pay Tony the reward they offered on their flier, but he turned them down.