When a British woman’s dog vanished from the driveway five years ago she soon gave up hope of seeing the pet again.
As the days went by without any sighting of seven-year-old T-Bone, Pat Oates concluded the Staffordshire bull terrier had been stolen.
So she was astonished and overjoyed to be told last week that the dog had been found five years on - riding on her local bus.
The bus driver took the animal to a local veterinary surgery, where staff were able to reunite ates with her long-lost pet, now aged 12, after scanning his microchip.
On Monday Oates, 48, a delivery driver, said: “We couldn’t believe it when we got the phone call. I thought the vet was winding me up. I broke down crying. We’re over the moon to have him back, we thought he was gone for good.”
The mother-of-three, who lives with partner Tony Wellington, 50, near Solihull, West Midlands, said it was a mystery how the dog came to be travelling on the number 37 bus, operated by Travel West Midlands. The bus travels between Birmingham City Centre and Solihull.
But she said it was no surprise he had been found on a bus, as the dog always enjoyed going on car journeys with the family.
She added: “No one saw who T-Bone was with. We will try to see if there’s CCTV on the bus, but the trouble is the person could claim they’d only just picked him up.”
Oates said T-Bone had been neglected and was suffering with a cyst on his leg. “The vet said to let him settle in first, but he will need treatment in future,” she added.
Leigh Fisher, of 608 Vets, in Birmingham, where the dog was taken by the bus driver, said the case illustrated how important it was for owners to get pets microchipped. - Daily Mail