When you think of an Australian Shepherd, you think of the dogs from the days of cowboys riding the range. 

Tough, ranch dogs who corral sheep and cattle in the dry heat of summer. You don’t necessarily think of them as fighting their way across the frozen Arctic waters, battling wild animals.

But for one family, that was their worst concern when their family dog went missing while they were visiting a neighboring town on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Mandy Iworrigan and her family were in Savoonga, Alaska, when two of their dogs, along with another family member’s dog, went missing. Iworrigan’s uncle tried calming her fears, she said, telling her that his dog, Ghost, did this all the time and usually returned on his own. But she couldn’t help but worry about Starlight and Nanuq.

They were gone,” Iworrigan said.

The family, who are from Gambell, nearly 40 miles away, could only wait and hope the dogs would return.

“My girls went to go play out, and they said, ‘mom, mom, mom – there’s a dog that looks like Starlight,’” she said. The dog followed the children around, trying to stay close to the snowmachine they were riding on.

But she suddenly realized what was happening.

“I was like, ‘Stop the snowmachine! Starlight! What are you doing in Savoonga?’” Iworrigan told the Anchorage Daily News. Somehow, the missing pup had reappeared more than 2 weeks after going missing. But the youngest dog, Nanuq, was with Starlight.

It would only take a week longer to find out what had happened to Nanuq. And his path had taken him more than 150 miles from his family.

“My dad texted me and said, ‘There’s a dog that looks like Nanuq in Wales,’ ” Iworrigan said.

The town sits on the tip of the Seward Peninsula. To get there, the newspaper reported, you had to travel over plates of ice, and face an assortment of wild animals from polar bears to seals.

After jumping on Facebook to see pictures of a lost dog that had been posted on a local site for neighborhood information, she couldn’t believe it.

I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?’” Iworrigan said.

To this day, she still isn’t sure how the dog ended up so far from home.

Nanuq found himself home finally, after a 150-mile-trek that led him across Arctic ice sheets and in the path of wild animals. Photo by the Iworrigan family.

“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” Iworrigan said. “I’m pretty sure he ate leftovers of seal or caught a seal. Probably birds, too. He eats our Native foods. He’s smart.”

The adventurous pup was flown home in a borrowed crate, Iworrigan said, using her airline points to cover the cost of the dog’s flight home.

Thankfully, Iworrigan said Nanuq only suffered a swollen leg with two large bite marks.

“Wolverine, seal, small (polar bear), we don’t know, because it’s like a really big bite,” she said.

But what she does know is simple. “If dogs could talk, both of them would have one heck of a story.” she said.

Watch below to see the family’s reunion with their Arctic-adventuring pup!

Sources: Anchorage Daily News | CBS News