The Yorkie Who Pledged a Fraternity: Kingston's Five-Year Journey Home

In August 2020, Hurricane Laura slammed into southwestern Louisiana with winds near 150 miles per hour, shattering windows and scattering debris across Lake Charles. Debbie LaFleur and her husband, Joseph, boarded up most of the damage to their home, but one small garage window went unrepaired. Two months later, Debbie came home from work to a sight she was not used to: the front door, where her Yorkshire Terrier Kingston always waited for her, was empty. She believes he slipped out through that unrepaired window. The family did everything right — they asked neighbors, posted on Facebook, and contacted PetLink, the microchip company Kingston had been registered with since he was just three months old. But after months of searching, hope quietly drained away.

Grief compounded grief. In August 2022, Joseph LaFleur died unexpectedly at 56. As Debbie mourned her husband, the idea that her long-lost dog might still be alive somewhere had long since faded into the past. Kingston, adopted as a puppy, had become a memory she carried rather than a pet she expected to hold again.

Then came the morning of March 30, 2025. At the Kappa Sigma fraternity house at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg — some 250 to 300 miles from Lake Charles — chapter president Neal Rachal walked outside and found a scruffy little Yorkie sitting on the back porch in a red T-shirt. No one nearby claimed him. The fraternity brothers took him in, named him Benji, and brought him along to their chapter meeting, where the tiny dog sat contentedly among the group's 54 members. They put out a call on Facebook and across the Greek Life community, trying to find whoever had lost him.

The next day, vice president John Christopher took the little dog to a local veterinarian — partly to check on a cough — and there the story turned. The vet scanned the dog and found a microchip. It had been registered years earlier by a Lake Charles animal clinic to a woman named Debbie LaFleur. Benji, it turned out, was not Benji at all. He was Kingston, and he had been missing for five years. When Christopher walked back into the fraternity house with the news, Rachal was floored: "No, Benji is Kingston. He's from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he's been missing for five years."

The fraternity contacted Debbie through PetLink. She received the message and initially assumed it was a hoax — there was simply no way. But when Christopher confirmed it over the phone, she broke down in tears, blurting out "They found Kingston!" to her boss at the Catholic church where she works as a bookkeeper. Because of her job, she couldn't make the four-hour drive immediately, so the brothers of Kappa Sigma agreed to keep caring for Kingston until she could come.

What followed was, by all accounts, the best week of a small dog's life. For roughly a week, Kingston lived the full college experience as an honorary Kappa Sigma. He went to intramural softball games, roamed the backyard volleyball court, took trips to Walmart for treats, and was doted on by dozens of young men who had adopted him as their unofficial mascot. Through their eyes, one brother said, he was a Kappa Sig.

On April 4, Debbie and her son made the long drive to Hattiesburg. They were anxious that Kingston, now 11 years old and away for nearly five years, might not remember them. When they arrived, the fraternity brothers were gathered outside. Debbie stood at the edge of the walkway and called out, "Kingston, come to Mommy." The little dog's ears perked up, and he bolted across the lawn and leapt into her arms as the crowd erupted in applause. "It was like no time had passed," she said through tears. "I never thought I'd see him again."

Kingston rode home to Louisiana bouncing from window to window, taking in the sights, and soon resumed his old routine — sleeping in Debbie's room and waiting by the front door. He met a new little brother, a Shih Tzu named Cooper. How he traveled 300 miles across state lines and survived five years remains a mystery no one has solved. But Debbie has one unshakable message for other pet owners, born of the tiny transponder that gave her back a piece of her family: "If you love your little fur baby, get them chipped."