6:18pm Monday 1st March 2010
By Liam Sloan
LEE Webb and Liz Morgan had given up hope of seeing their beloved pet dog Sadie ever again.
The Jack Russell disappeared from Miss Morgan’s parents’ pub at Checkendon on October 11 and dozens of people took part in searches for the missing 18-month-old puppy.
But, in an adventure reminiscent of Walt Disney’s The Incredible Journey, Sadie turned up four months later and 28 miles away in Langley, near Slough.
The couple, from Benson, said the dog escaped from the Black Horse pub and ran into nearby woodland. They spent a month searching, but could not sniff out any clues.
They recruited 35 friends to scour woodland surrounding the pub, which is run by Ms Morgan’s parents.
Mr Webb said: “We were distraught. We haven’t got children, so our dogs are like children to us, and we have never lost another dog.”
All hope seemed lost when the worried owners heard reports of a Jack Russell’s body lying on the roadside near Peppard Common.
But, when Mr Webb drove up to the Common to look, there was no sign of the reported accident.
“It was worse not knowing,” he said.
“If we had known she had been knocked over, we could have coped with that. The house was just empty without her.”
But tragedy turned to joy when the couple received a phone call telling them a Jack Russell had been taken into the pound at Langley Police Station.
A scan of her microchip, fitted by Cholsey vets Larkmead Veterinary Group, revealed the dog was Sadie.
She had put on a pound in weight and had a fracture in one ankle, but instantly recognised her owners.
Mr Webb said: “It was very emotional going to collect her.
“She came racing up to us wagging her tail. “She looks a bit different, because when she went missing she was just a pup. Now she has got her winter coat and is all fluffy.”
The couple are still in the dark about how she had survived before being found last month.
A mystery woman handed in the dog at the police station without an explanation of where Sadie had been found.
Mr Webb said he had few ideas about what had happened to her during her missing months. One theory is she was stolen to try to breed from her, but because she is spayed they realised after three months she was not coming into season,” he said.
Vet Claire Helyar said: “Sadie’s story shows the importance of getting pets microchipped. Without the chip, no-one would have known where Sadie came from when she turned up miles away.”
* Micro-chipping your pet is a painless procedure to insert the chip – about the size of a grain of rice – under the skin, usually between the shoulder blades. Vets typically charge somewhere between £15 and £30.
lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk
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