A Golden Retriever rescue dog called Cooper has lived a colourful life that’s scarcely believable. After being taken to the pound by his owners, he spent some time in the kennels before being rehomed to live with a new owner and a new canine sister.

However, a matter of moment after meeting his new sibling, Molly, Cooper dashed from the car and went on the run for almost a month, travelling more than 40 miles back to where he used to live.

According to Belfast Live, Lost Paws Northern Ireland calculated that Cooper wondered the many miles through woods and along main roads, mostly at night. He did all of this without anyone feeding him, until he returned to his ‘real home’ – the property of his previous owners.

Cooper evaded organised searches day and night, he avoided traffic and human contact, darting into secret safety holes to bed down. He even avoided the sheep farmers watchful over new born lambs at the height of their busiest season as he flanked Co Tyrone farmlands.

No one is sure how he managed it, perhaps the big dog was looking for his old family after being handed to the pound, maybe he missed the dog brother he had been separated from.

He could have had no idea where he was setting off from, he had no map and no logical understanding of the route to take – just a cold, wet nose nose that guided him all the way back to a place he once thought of as home.

He travelled from the town centre of Dungannon to Cookstown to Magherafelt and finally to the place he had been a puppy, Tobermore, 26 miles as the crow flies, 40-plus by the Golden Retriever.

All the while he had an army of dog lovers trying to find him and reunite him with his new owner who was desperate to bring him home.

New owner Nigel, a photographer from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, explained: “I’m sitting here looking at him and I cannot believe he’s home. We had literally driven from the dog pound to my home when he bolted. I’d met Cooper a few days before in the hope he’d be good company for my Golden Retriever Molly. I felt she’d love a dog companion and found Cooper and his brother George in a dog pound.

“I’d have loved to have taken both of them but three big Goldens would have been too much for me to look after and in the end it was literally the toss of a coin that decided which one to take home – it was Cooper.

“After a successful meeting with Molly, I got all the arrangements sorted and Cooper’s microchip was transferred to my name. I paid his rehoming fee and we went home for a new start. But I was just about to get the dogs out of the car on their leads for their first walk together when Cooper bolted. He literally jumped over Holly, prized the car door open enough to get past me and ran for it.

“It was a disaster. The poor boy had no idea where he was and he was in the wind. I tried to chase after him but he was gone in an instant – so then the search was on.

“That was on April 1 with the help of a lot of people, I finally got him back today, April 26. I was determined not to give up on him and with the help of Lost Paws NI, co-ordinated searches, sightings, social media and sheer determination got us there in the end.

“Just as I was about to do a big story with DogsLive asking more people to look out for Cooper, I got a call from Lost Paws NI to say a member of the public had reported seeing him in the Tobermore area, back to where he had started all those weeks ago.

“So today I’m a very happy and relieved man, grateful to every single person who helped me from the team at Lost Paws, Pets Lost and Found Mid Ulster, to the public and DogsLive who offered support, suggestions and practical help. In the end all we had to do was follow a dog’s nose home to familiar surroundings. If only we’d known, we could have saved big Cooper all that anxiety.

Source: Read Full Article