(NEXSTAR) – When an Arizona toddler wandered away from home Monday, a team of deputies, search and rescue volunteers and rangers began their search. In the end, it was a protective pup who tracked down the 2-year-old.

The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office said the boy was reported missing around 5 p.m. Monday in Seligman, Arizona. The search for the child went overnight, with concern growing as rangers in a rescue helicopter spotted two mountain lions in the rough terrain where the boy was thought to have been.

On Tuesday morning, after he had been missing for 16 hours, a local rancher spotted a child on his property – about seven miles from where he was reported missing.

“I was getting ready to leave. I had heard about the missing child before I was going to town. When I was driving out the driveway, I noticed my dog was sitting down by the entrance, and I look up and the little kid was standing there with my dog,” the rancher, identified by NBC News as Scottie Dunton, said.

Dunton said he took the boy inside the house to calm him down and get him some food and water. “I asked him and I said, ‘Did you walk all night?’ and he said, ‘No, I laid up under a tree.’ And I said, ‘Well did my dog find you?’ and he goes, ‘Yup.'”

The dog, an Anatolian Pyrenees named Buford, regularly patrols the property, Dunton said. He guessed Buford found the child and stayed with him, slowly guiding him closer to safety.

“Knowing that he was the missing child, it was a relief that he was alive, so I was ecstatic that he was OK and that my dog found him,” Dunton said.