A United Airlines mix-up sent this dog to Japan. He just made it home to Wichita

Irgo the German Shepherd has made it back to his new home in Wichita after a United Airlines mix-up mistakenly flew him to Japan.

His human family is moving from Oregon to Wichita, and they took a United Airlines flight from Portland to Kansas City that landed on Tuesday.

Irgo had to fly in cargo on a different flight because he was too big — he's 10 years old and weighs about 80 pounds. He was scheduled to land in Kansas City just before his owner, Kara Swindle, and her two children.

But when Swindle and her family landed in Kansas City and went to pick up Irgo from the airline kennels, she discovered that a Great Dane was sitting in the kennel labeled with Irgo's paperwork.

"We went to cargo to pick him up where the kennels are and out pops a Great Dane when we call his name," Swindle previously said. "We burst into tears seeing this is not my dog."

She later discovered that Irgo was on a flight to Japan, replacing the Great Dane who was actually scheduled to fly internationally.

United Airlines flew Irgo on a private charter plane to Eisenhower National Airport on Thursday, Joseph Swindle said. The flight was nearly 12 hours long.

"It's a long flight, especially for an older dog," Kara Swindle said. "I can't imagine what he's thinking ... "

United Airlines issued the following statement regarding the incident:

"An error occurred during connections in Denver for two pets sent to the wrong destinations. We have notified our customers that their pets have arrived safely and will arrange to return the pets to them as soon as possible. We apologize for this mistake and are following up with the vendor kennel where they were kept overnight to understand what happened."

This story was originally published March 15, 2018 at 9:11 PM with the headline "A United Airlines mix-up sent this dog to Japan. He just made it home to Wichita."