BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A dog that went missing 10 years ago in Alabama is being reunited with its owner.

Dental assistant Tracy Dove assumed her 1-year-old dog named Charlie was gone forever when he disappeared from a pen in the north Alabama city of Cullman in 2006. She suspects someone stole the German Shorthaired Pointer.

But animal rescuer Renee Jones got a call recently about an old dog that was lying outside a church in south Alabama. A microchip implanted in the animal led Jones to Dove.

No one knows exactly where the dog has been for the last decade, but Charlie now has a gray muzzle and a cancerous tumor in his chest.

Dove says she’s looking forward to reclaiming Charlie and she wants the make the remainder of his life as comfortable as possible.