Long-lost Buddy reunited with owner
Published: February 9, 2006
After more than a year living as a stray and in the houses of strangers, Buddy, an aging, ailing, down-on-his-luck dachshund who police believe was stolen and then abandoned, has finally found his way home.
Or more accurately, Hull Animal Control officer Megan Hanrahan found it for him, with a little help from The Patriot Ledger.
‘‘I just got done crying,’’ she said yesterday after dropping Buddy off at his owner’s house.
Buddy was the subject of a Ledger story Tuesday that chronicled Hanrahan’s complicated quest to find his owner.
She picked him up as a stray along George Washington Boulevard in the summer 2004. His microchip identification tag didn’t register on her scanner, which reads only chips made by a certain manufacturer.
Buddy stayed with a police dispatcher until recently, when Hanrahan took him in. During a visit to the vet last week, the doctor used a universal scanner and traced the microchip to the Brockton MSPCA. The staff there traced Buddy to a family in Westwood.
But that family had never owned Buddy, and Hanrahan suspected that a clerical mishap was to blame for the confusion.
She asked the Ledger to print Buddy’s story and pictures of him. A friend of the owner saw the story and told her the dog looked a lot like the one she thought had been killed by a coyote.
The owner called Hanrahan, who asked her to describe the dog. All she had to do was say that Buddy can’t sleep unless he’s buried under a blanket.
‘‘She said, ‘We have your dog,’’’ said the owner, who asked not to be identified.
‘‘I’m so excited, I don’t even know what day it is,’’ she said. ‘‘I can’t believe he’s here. It’s like I’m dreaming.’’
She said she lost Buddy, whose real name is Diablo, when he sneaked out of the house to visit a neighbor who was known to give him food he wasn’t supposed to have.
He is small and quiet, and a few hours passed before she realized he was gone. When he didn’t come back, she feared the worst.
‘‘I had nightmares that a coyote got him,’’ she said. ‘‘We went through almost a mourning period.’’
She even took down her wind chimes because their clinking tricked her into thinking it was the tags on his collar.
Buddy, who is pushing 15, is a few steps slower than when she last saw him. He used to hop up on her lap but now he needs some help.
Even though the vet says Buddy only has a year or so left, his owner is thrilled to have him back, so much so she doesn’t care that he no longer answers to Diablo.
‘‘We’ve decided to keep calling him Buddy,’’ she said. ‘‘He’s been through enough.’’
And while Hanrahan said she is pleased Buddy’s long-unsolved case is closed, she doesn’t exactly want to take on another one. She recommends that pet owners make sure their pets’ microchips register correctly.
‘‘Verify that it comes back to you,’’ she advised.
Finding Buddy’s owner was quite a task, Hanrahan said, but witnessing the conclusion was worth it.
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