NORTH READING -- William Leong thought he had buried Kona, his family’s beloved Japanese Kai Ken dog, a few days after she slipped her harness at the end of a walk and ran away.
Leong had scoured the woods between Reading and North Reading after Kona escaped Dec. 19. He buried the remains he found, certain that she “had been attacked by wild animals,” North Reading police said in a report.
But Leong and his family received a holiday surprise Friday morning, when they learned that Kona had ambled into the home of an off-duty North Reading police officer. Leong drove five-and-a-half hours from New York, where his family had been visiting relatives, to a North Reading pet grooming store, where man and dog were reunited.
“It was a roller coaster of emotion,” a visibly elated Leong said Friday night during a news conference at the North Reading police station, flanked by Kona and the family’s other dog, Yoshi, a Shiba Inu. “Now I feel like I have to put 10 leashes on her.”
Leong said he was putting Kona and Yoshi in his truck last Friday night after the walk, when he turned his back. The 35-pound dog slipped out of her leash and bolted.
“I looked at her, and she looked at me, and she took off,” Leong said.
Reading police had informed Leong shortly after Kona went missing that they had received a report of a dog matching her description that may have been hit by a car near Main Street, according to a North Reading police report.
So when Leong found the remains three days later, he assumed Kona “had been attacked by wild animals after being injured by the car sometime before or after her death,” the report said.
North Reading police offered their condolences. Like Leong, they thought the case had ended on a tragic note just three days before Christmas.
But then Greg Connolly, an off-duty North Reading police officer, called his department on Friday morning to report that a small black dog with no leash had somehow ambled into his fenced-in back yard.
Police recognized the dog as a possible match for Kona, and Connolly sent photos of the pooch to department headquarters, which appeared to match images that Leong had provided.
Connolly “lassoed” the dog with a leash, and it was ultimately taken to Grooming Unlimited on 238 Park St. in North Reading, police said.
They then called Leong and cautioned that they could not be certain Kona had been found safe until he made the positive identification, which he did at the grooming shop.
“It was the happiest day of my life,” Leong said on Friday with a smile. “I actually dropped to the ground. I was so shocked.”
He said Yoshi had stopped eating after Kona disappeared, presumably from stress. In addition, Leong told police that “he and his family had been devastated by the loss of Kona,” the incident report said, sentiments that Leong echoed on Friday night.
“I can’t imagine what I’d do without my dogs,” he told reporters.
North Reading police Lieutenant Thomas Romeo added that the turn of events was a rarity.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Romeo said. “This is a very unique case because the dog actually found us.”
And in so doing, Kona provided Leong and his family with no small measure of joy on the day after Christmas.
“After witnessing the reunion, it was safe to say that it was in fact a Very, Merry Christmas for Kona and her family,” the police report said, adding that Kona was in good health.
Leong added on Friday that it would be difficult to imagine life without his dogs.
“I don’t think of them as pets,” he said. “I think of them as companions.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Melissa Hanson can be reached at Melissa.Hanson@globe.com.