A couple of times in the game my companion has dissapeared without reason, i have heard other people also experiencing this. I have found a solution to this, it works for me so i hope it works for others to. Go to vault 22 (the one that is owergrowed with grass) and travel down to the 4th or 5th level. If my companion is gone he allways reapers when i go there.
I second this, I had to use this method to recover Boone.
I just use the moveto console command. Works fine. This game is all about following companions stopping to follow you with no reason. Also, I'm annoyed as heck each time I leave the Casino and have to remap all my weapons/items.
That method also works but it's to my understanding that it will disable the achievement "record" for that save game once you use console commands. I can't confirm this as I really haven't needed to use the console command for anything yet, but I read that on a few forums while searching for that above, Vault 22, companion "fix".