SALISBURY, N.C. — Molly the dog went missing four years ago. Her owners gave up hope of ever seeing her again — that is, until she just showed up at the doorstep one day, WBTV reported.

Four years ago, Molly the German shepherd, and best friend to Joel and Carolyn McDonald, went missing.

Though they searched for weeks, the McDonalds gave up hope.

“That’s when I said, ‘She’s gone, I don’t know how or where,'” Joel McDonald said.

They still don’t know that, but they do know Tuesday morning a dog that looked a lot like Molly showed up on their doorstep.

“Didn’t know for sure, I thought it was her,” Joel McDonald said. “So I sat down on the porch, and she just came like that and put her head in my lap and said ‘Oh my.'”

“I was at school and he left a message, ‘You’ll never believe what came to the doorstep this morning,’ and his voice was cracking and it was quite startling to me. So as quick as I could get in touch with him he relayed the story to me that Molly Girl was there,” Carolyn McDonald said.

Neither one of them believed it, so they brought Molly to the Animal Care Center of Salisbury with the hopes that microchip they had put in their dog nine years ago might pay off.

“We didn’t ask him his name or anything, I looked down and I says we got a number,” said Terry from Animal Care Center of Salisbury. “I looked it up … and I said, ‘That’s your Molly.'”

You couldn’t find a dry eye in that room.

“I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, I’d already said she was gone,” Joel McDonald said.

And for four years she was, but she’s back home now.

“I’ve asked her and asked her, but she won’t tell me where she’s been.”

That’s an answer they may never get, but as of now it’s a question that doesn’t even matter.