Honey the dog is reunited with her owner J.C. Vickers, right, and his great-grandson Dawson Fletcher in front of the home of her rescuer Lisa Copeland in Ooltewah on Sunday. Copeland rescued Honey after a tornado struck Vickers' home Friday.Looking at his grandfather's collapsed, tornado-ravaged garage, David Fletcher tried not to lose hope for the dog he knew had been inside.
As his family tried to put their lives together, he made it his mission to find his grandfather's 5-year-old Lab-German shepherd mix, Honey.
But when he found her, it wasn't in a field or a home, it was on the Times Free Press web site. Honey was front-page news - a photographer had captured an image of two women carrying the dog amid storm debris.
Fletcher contacted the photographer and reporter, but neither knew what had become of Honey. The rescuers in the photo didn't, either.
He hit another dead end when he used the photo in a social media campaign.
His mother-in-law made a breakthrough on Saturday after the photo appeared in the print edition of the paper.
Standing in line at a storage facility, she overheard some women discussing the dog from the newspaper that their friend Lisa Copeland had found.
After exchanging accounts with the women, she knew she had found Fletcher's dog.
Honey had been cared for by a nearby family and pampered by their young daughters.
However, when Fletcher picked her up on Sunday, everyone seemed relieved to be reunited.