A miniature Schnauzer in Iowa broke the habit of a lifetime to make an incredible long distance journey to be by her sick owner’s side.

Cissy had never run away from home before but on Saturday made the 20 block trip from her garden to a the Mercy Medical Centre, where her owner, Nancy Frank, had been an in-patient for the past two weeks after undergoing surgery for ovarian cancer.

Cissy was missing for close to four hours when staff at the hospital found her wandering the hallways and called Nancy Franck’s husband, Dale.

Dale later told reporters he had noticed Cissy had been acting anxious and he sensed she wanted to go somewhere.

Image: Cissy enters the Mercy Medical Centre Credit: KCRG

“We looked up and there was this dog just that was just running across the lobby,” Samantha Conrad, security officer at the Mercy Medical Centre, told KCRG. 

'”We started looking at the tags and it had the address and we saw how far away this dog had lived, as far as going at least fifteen blocks to get here.

“So it was quite an amazing journey that this dog made.”

The Franck family say Cissy had never been to the hospital before and they have no idea how she found her way there, but Nancy was happy she did.

"That was great just being able to see her," Nancy said.

"That was perfect. I’m glad she thought of it."