Mon 18th Sept: From death to resurrection and adoption

Freddie (front) chose a new life and home for himself

I ended up working from home all day as one thing led to another, and I was still glued to my desk and computer until the evening.  One of the cases that dropped unexpectedly into my lap started with a strange message from AFCD telling me that a dog someone had found on the other side of Lamma was registered as mine, and I had reported it in early July as being dead.  I checked my diary for dogs that had died around that time and there were a couple, but I was quite sure they were who I thought they were and that they really were quite dead.  I called the number AFCD gave me but had to wait for someone to call me back before the mystery was solved, which it was and in the happiest of ways.

I had a four year-old dog called Freddie who mastered the art of fence climbing, as some do, and he started to let himself out every day so he could wander freely outside and on the beach.  It wasn't really a problem and it was pointless trying to persuade him to stay in the garden, and he became one of the gang that saw me off every day and greeted me when I came home.  He seemed to be happy with his life, but one day in June he disappeared.  I waited for him to reappear while searching high and low for a body, but after some time I had to accept that he was gone, and had either taken himself off to the woods to die or had maybe died on the beach and been washed out to sea by the tide.  Eventually I reported his death to AFCD, as everyone is supposed to do in case you weren't aware.

The Whatsapp message that came later in the afternoon was from an old friend of mine who told me she had come across a stray dog some time ago and had been trying to befriend him, eventually succeeding and managing to get a harness on.  She had called him Sambal, and she asked the local rescue group to scan him in case he had a microchip, which he did.  Lamma Animal Welfare Centre (LAWC) contacted AFCD who found that the dog was registered under my name, but it was only when I was sent the photo that I immediately recognised Sambal as being my missing "dead" Freddie.

Baby Freddie in 2013

The best part of the story is that my friend Carey wants to officially adopt Freddie Sambal, so now I have to resurrect him and his paperwork at AFCD and then transfer ownership.  It's an amazing story and a very happy one, and I was grateful that I had been at home and able to spend the necessary time to sort everything out.