ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — It’s nearly 700 miles from Fayetteville, Ark., to Gulf Shores, Ala.

Depending on where you’re coming from on Fort Morgan Road, it’s only about 30 miles from there to Camping World in Robertsdale, but it’s a journey for one little dog that one family won’t soon forget.

Jim Thuma said he and his wife and their 8-year-old grandson, Brandon Rector, were vacationing on the beach in April and brought along their dog, Bonnie, who had been rescued from a shelter just a few months earlier.

“We had rented a house on Fort Morgan Road and were just settling in,” Thuma said.

On the second day of their nine-day vacation, Bonnie disappeared.

“We spent the next seven days looking for her, but we never did find her,” he said. So at vacation’s end, the family had to pack up and go back to Arkansas without the dog.

“We were just devastated, but there was nothing we could do,” Thuma said.

Months went by with no word of whether or not the dog was alive or dead, but then just days ago, a miracle happened. The family received a call that the little dog had been found alive and well in, of all places, the Robertsdale business, which sells recreational vehicles and camping equipment.

“We own a car dealership and we do keep a few RVs,” said Keven Rector, Thuma’s step-son and Brandon’s father, who made the journey with Thuma back to Baldwin County on Friday to pick up the dog.

It had been weeks since people began seeing the little dog hanging around near the newly opened McDonald’s in Robertsdale.

Some of the employees began feeding the dog in a nearby parking lot, and tried several times, even soliciting the help of the city of Robertsdale’s animal control officer, but never could get close enough to the dog to catch it.

About a week and a half ago, Bonnie showed up in the parking lot at Camping World, using the giant vacation homes on wheels as shelter from the recurring afternoon storms.

“Several of our employees tried to catch her to take care of her,” said manager David Randall. “She liked children and whenever children would come in, she would follow them around, but no one else could ever get close enough to her to catch her. We were giving her food trying to lure her in, but she would never come out.”

Then on Thursday, during another of the violent afternoon storms that rock the area, Camping World employee Brittany Peyton spotted Bonnie under one of the RVs.

“She was cold and shaking and really scared because of the storm,” Peyton said. “I just go down on her level and started coaxing her and she eventually came to me.”

Fellow employees say, though an adult, Peyton looks like so much like a child herself that Bonnie must have been drawn to her. Now her fellow employees are calling Peyton a hero.

One of the employees called Tina Byrd, owner of Pawsitive Cuts, to clean the dog.

“She was full of ticks and fleas,” Byrd said. “So I gave her a good bath, cleaned her up and got rid of all the insects.”

Byrd said she had seen the dog after stopping by McDonald’s on her way home and tried her self to catch the dog, to no avail.

“I’m just so happy that they were able to find her family and she is on her way home,” said Byrd who decided not to charge for the service. “It’s not something I do often, but it wasn’t their responsibility. They were doing a good thing and I didn’t want to take advantage of that. I guess I just have a soft spot in my heart for animals.”

Employees at Camping World also took Bonnie to a local veterinarian, where they found she had a chip implanted. From the chip, they were able to locate Bonnie’s family, called and the next day, Thuma and Rector made the 700-mile journey from Fayetteville to reunite with their dog.

“I just think she was trying to find her way home,” Thuma said, adding that finding little Bonnie is also an opportunity for their family to heal.

“I just lost my son two days ago and this is like putting the family back together again,” said Thuma. “It’s almost like my son is looking out for us.”

Thuma said his sister is a veterinarian and Bonnie will spend one day with her being checked out before returning home.

“It’s definitely going to be a happy reunion,” Thuma said. “We got another little rescue dog a couple of months ago and named him Keeper. Before we made the journey down here, Brandon turned to me and said, ‘does this mean we’re going to have to give Keeper back?’ I assured him we are going to be a two-dog family from now on.”