A New Yorker has been looking for her lost dog for five years: now they are finally together again

A New Yorker devastated after the disappearance of her old English bulldog Azzurra Diamante five years ago is now reunited with him - 1600 miles away. About the touching story of Azzurra told ABC7NY.

“I just went crazy,” said dog owner Jen Costa. “I didn’t know what to think.”

Costa is a native of New York. Five years ago, she underwent an operation that changed her life. Shortly thereafter, her bulldog went missing.

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"My dad looked after her while I was in hospital. But when I got home, she and my other dog, Bruno, were there with me. And about a month or two after my surgery, she was gone,” Costa said. She spent hours, days and months trying to find her dog but in vain. 2016 and 2017 were two of the hardest years of her life without it.

“I was really depressed. I didn't care what happened to me. I was not so positive right after the operation. It took me a while to get my mind back here, but it was just a tough time,” she said.

Years passed, and Costa assumed that someone had taken her dog with no intention of returning it. Azzurra was chipped and had a token. Just last Tuesday, January 11, she received an unexpected message.

“I was sitting in the barber chair, getting my hair cut, I saw the email and… I just burst into tears. The barber had to stop work and hand me a tissue; he had to wait to cut my hair,” she said.

Shortly after receiving an email from Henderson, Tennessee Animal Control, Costa made the 16-hour drive from New York to Tennessee in her car.

"She'll get whatever she wants," Costa said of her dog. “Now she is No. 1, and she knows it. She will soon find out."

Now, after five years apart, Costa and Azzurra are finally back together. "I'm going to take her for a bath and then I'm going to take her to dinner," Costa said.