For the past seven years, the locals of Crawley Down, a town in West Sussex, England, fed a meandering 12-year-old Patterdale terrier. They assumed she was simply making the village rounds. No one knew she was homeless.
Acting on a recent tip from a driver who spotted the wayward dog crossing a road, Lost Dog Recovery UK South established a feeding routine in a safe, undisclosed location. Images from a camera mounted nearby showed her features, frosted by age. On December 9, volunteers set a humane trap with a tempting treat.
“We knew our little stray was picky and we had worked out what she liked,” the nonprofit told CNN. Roast chicken topped with pâté lured her, tentatively, into the trap. “Understandably, she was shocked and scared” when the door snapped shut, but she was “very gentle,” the rescue posted on Facebook.
A microchip scan revealed her identity: Rose, adopted in March, 2017. She’d been adopted just 24 hours before she went missing. The rescue group learned that Rose was sighted soon thereafter, but the trail went cold.
Authorities contacted Rose’s humans. They had since relocated and their circumstances had changed such that they could no longer care for her. It is unclear whether Rose’s family lived in or near Crawley Down and to what extent they tracked her anecdotal wanderings. However, the rescue reported that Rose’s former owners “ . . . are thrilled she is safe and unhurt and, of course, sad they aren’t able to take her back.
“Although we will never know when exactly she came to settle in Crawley Down, what we do know is that she is finally safe, and now will not spend the rest of her senior years fending for herself in the cold and wet,” the rescue said.
Rose is now cared for by Last Chance Animal Rescue in Edenbridge, a township in Kent. The rescue reported getting a flurry of inquiries into adopting Rose.
While some missing dogs keep local, others fling far from home. Last February, a South Carolina woman spotted a forlorn Jack Russel-Pug mix lumbering roadside in a downpour. She scooped up the pup and took him to a local vet who scanned his microchip. “Nugget” had somehow vanished from his owner’s New Mexico home seven years earlier. Nothing is known of the 16-year-old’s journey to the Southeast and whether he was housed, but he and his owner’s reunion will be forever cherished.
In August, 1923 the Brazier family visited relatives in Wolcott, Indiana. Bobbie, the family’s Scottish Collie-English Shepherd mix, bolted after being attacked by three dogs. Heartbroken after an exhaustive and empty search, the family returned home to Silverton, Oregon. Six months later, Bobbie appeared on the Brazier’s doorstep; toenails worn to the nub and cat matted with the grime of his 2,500-mile trek. Bobbie braved winter weather to cross deserts, plaines and two mountain ranges to be with his beloved family. Bobbie’s odyssey became fodder for print news, the silent, silver screen, and enshrinement in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
In their quest for family, a dog will dig deep to survive.