Beagle makes incredible journey from Kansas to Alabama

AUBURN, Ala. -- Stray dogs show up all the time around Auburn University. They don't usually belong 800 miles away in Kansas.

But that was the case with Norman, a beagle who wandered off from his owner in Solomon, Kan., one day in March and showed up Friday outside an Auburn University computer repair shop.

"I didn't think much of it -- we've found dogs out here before," said Daryl Waites, Auburn's digital repair manager. "Usually just some student lost them."

Waites, a dog lover and owner, coaxed the beagle into the repair shop, where he and receptionist Cindy Darby checked the dog's collar. The collar's dull brass tag was inscribed: 2003, City of Solomon, KS.

Darby called City Hall in Solomon, a small town located 90 miles west of Topeka, and gave the tag number and a description of the dog.

"It sounded like a description of Norman," said an astonished Tallie Baetz, Solomon's city clerk.

Norman belonged to Baetz's neighbors, Tim and Jennifer Cross, two local schoolteachers. They had named the chubby dog -- a wedding gift from Tim to his bride -- after the character on "Cheers."

"She said she had our dog, but no idea how he got there," Jennifer Cross said. "I was crying too hard to teach after she called. I ran to tell Tim, but he didn't believe it was true."

No one knows how Norman came to arrive in Alabama. Stretches of interstate and railroad alike run through both Solomon and Auburn. If he walked, he would have had to average about 20 miles a day.

"I wasn't going to take a vacation this year, but it looks like we're going to make a drive to Alabama to get Norman," Jennifer Cross said.

Waites plans to keep the dog until the Crosses can make the trip.