Lovesick dog reunited with owner after finding him at the hospital

NEW YORK -- If you've ever doubted the special connection between man and dog -- this next story may change your mind.

A dog escaped from his home and turned up two miles away. He was found right outside the hospital where his owner was recovering.

It's a story of deep friendship between man and dog. Zander, a 7-year-old husky, was so heartbroken over his owner being hospitalized that he slipped out the back door of his Long Island, New York home and ran more than two miles to find him at the hospital.

"I don't know how he got there," John Dolan said.

Dolan was laying in his hospital bed when he received a call from a hospital employee with an urgent message.

"I got to get to work. I got your dog. You got to come and get him," Dolan said.

How could a dog possibly have known his owner was in a hospital 2 miles away?

Animal experts say it's a mystery how some dogs can do this. "This dog can get out of that yard and start wandering around and wind up in front of that hospital, It's like one in a million," dog trainer Bill Stavers said.

No one knows how he made it there because he had never been to the hospital before.

Zander would have had to pass by a stream, cross a busy highway, and navigate through neighborhood streets to get there.

Zander was a starving shelter dog rescued by Dolans five years ago. Dolan and Zander took daily walks around the neighborhood, so when Dolan was hospitalized Zander was distraught.

"Of course we're buddies, he came to see me," Dolan said.

Dolan says the 70-pound husky is like a son to him and Zander's devotion truly shows why dogs are man's best friend.

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