SPANAWAY, Wash. -- It's been a long six weeks for the Hazard family.

Their two dogs went missing, leaving the family heartbroken.

As many loving pet owners would, the family did just about everything they could to try to find them. They drove through the neighborhood. They called animal control and police. They even posted a missing pet ad on Craigslist.

But the family's worries weren't subsided until Cordell Hazard spotted a posting on Craigslist offering two dogs for sale.

The pictured dogs looked just like the ones the family was missing -- a 4-foot-tall Great Dane named Baby and a 2-year-old pug named Samson. And the seller's address was just a few doors down from the Hazards' home.

That's when Hazard began to believe he may, after all, find his beloved pets.

Hazard had felt as if he had lost two of his children after he lost the two critters he had raised since they were born.

"I came and I'm like, 'oh my God, the door's cracked open," he said, remembering the day his dogs disappeared. "I go inside and I'm like, 'oh,where are my dogs?'"

After seeing the ad, Hazard was confident the dogs pictured were his.

"In the background of the photo of the Great Dane is a pug. That's too much of a coincidence," said Hazard.

He called the cell phone number listed in the ad.

"I believed I was lied to," he said. "They (the sellers) kept telling me stories, that it wasn't my dogs, that they found them four months ago and now they don't have the Great Dane anymore."

Hazard went to the sellers' home, willing to do just about anything to get his pets back.

"I don't even have to talk to you. Just let the dogs go," he told the sellers.

Hazard even offered the sellers $300 for any information about the dogs' whereabouts, but the sellers didn't bite.

"They refused to cooperate," he said.

Craigslist users eventually began reading the postings between the Hazards and the so-called owners of the Great Dane, and started harping on the owners to cough up the dogs.

Then the unexpected happened.

"Today we had a miracle," said Cori Hazard on Monday.

A Pierce County Sheriff's deputy knocked on their door to tell them a man has come forward with the Great Dane.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he bought the dog from a seller on Craigslist. When he heard that missing Great Dane was being sold on the Web site, he contacted the Hazards.

"I wanted to do the right thing because I had lost a dog before and I know what it feels like," said the man. The Hazards believe there is no evidence he was involved in selling the Great Dane.

Baby had a microchip implanted in his neck, which made it easy to identify the dog. But Baby's excitement upon seeing her owners was even a bigger testament to her true identity. Cori and Cordell were all smiles as Baby rushed into their arms and licked their faces.

"It's just like a big piece of me is back and a burden (is) off my chest. It's just so good to see her," said Cordell.

The man who had sold the dog refused to admit he'd sold at least one of the Hazards' dogs until a sheriff's deputy showed up. About an hour later, he told the deputy he had, in fact, sold Baby, but didn't know where Sampson was, claiming he had run away earlier in the day.

Detectives are investigating the whereabouts of Samson.