Woman Drives 18 Hours to Surprise 15-Year-Old ‘Soul Dog.’ Then the Sweetest Thing Happens (Exclusive)

• Jane Helffrich traveled 18 hours from Ohio to Florida to surprise her family dog, Reilly 

• Jane, 27, shared the moment Reilly woke up from a nap to find that she had returned home 

• The video of their reunion has been viewed more than 3.2 million times and garnered upwards of 710,000 likes

One Chihuahua got the sweetest surprise when his human sister drove 18 hours to see him.

Jane Helffrich, whose username is @gingerhaaze, captured a video of the moment she reunited with her dog, Reilly, and it has since been viewed more than 3.2 million times, getting 710,000 likes.

Jane, 27, lives in Ohio, while her family dog Reilly, who is 15 years old, was in Florida with Jane's mother and father at the family’s second home. He’s one of five small pets the family has, but Jane calls him her “soul dog.”

In the video of the reunion, Reilly is seen sleeping on the couch, when suddenly he raises his nose to the air. “He smells me,” Jane wrote in the video, which was posted on Dec. 21, 2024. “I walked in and he was fast asleep so I figured [I’d] record this moment,” the caption read.

Speaking to PEOPLE exclusively, Jane says that her family includes five children and “a lot of animals.” She explains, “A lot of the time it seemed as though the animals would each pick their favorite human and it was noticeable.” Reilly picked Jane.

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Jane’s family got Reilly, “the biggest and sweetest” of a litter of Chihuahuas, when Jane was 12 years old. “As soon as he came home, he established himself as king of the household,” she remembers.

Of her beloved pet’s personality, Jane says, “He thinks he runs the house and everyone lives on his time.” She adds, “He loves attention. Now that he’s older, he loves to sleep, be loved and bark at the cars that drive by the house.”

The pair share 15 years of memories together, with Jane calling Reilly her “sidekick.” Jane says that she was always aware of their bond, but she noticed just how special it was when she went away to college.

“My mom would tell me how sad [Reilly] always was and just mope around,” she says. “He would lose it with excitement every time I came home.”

And that bond only continued to grow stronger. Jane explains that, as he got older, Reilly needed to be hand-fed, otherwise he would skip meals. She shares, “I would go over my parents' house often for dinner. Once [Reilly] saw I would help in getting him to eat, he would spend every time after that refusing to eat — sitting and staring at the garage door waiting for me to walk in and feed him.”

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Often, Reilly would skip his meal if Jane wasn’t there to feed him. “I started going over regularly for dinner to make sure he ate a full meal, as long as they were in Ohio”

Though Reilly spends some time in Florida, Jane says “Whenever we are reunited, he is attached to me 24/7.”

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Now that she lives far away, Jane misses snuggling with Reilly most of all: “Small dogs love to burrow so he was always snuggled up under a blanket in my lap.”

To those people watching the video (and maybe even tearing up), Jane says, “Old dogs are so special and require so much love and patience. Hold them tight and love them while you can!”

Read the original article on People