The story is incredible: Stella, now twelve years old, a Breton breed dog, ten years after her loss, was able to embrace her owners again.
An adventure with a happy ending that is more unique than rare, in which the managers and volunteers of the Rifugio 281 kennel in San Michele Mondovì, in the province of Cuneo, played the leading role. It all started with a phone call from the carabinieri to the Ceva refuge. “In our territory there is a stray dog”, this is the beginning of the story. The rest was told on its website and Facebook profile by the GEA association of San Michele Mondovì, a non-profit organization that manages the refuge.
Once the volunteers arrived on site, they came across the little and fearful Breton. Recovered and secured, the dog was subsequently transferred to the Cuneo shelter. The reading of the microchip highlighted the owner’s name and surname and a telephone number which, however, was no longer active. At this point the demographic offices of the Municipality of Ceva entered and, after painstaking work on the computer, managed to trace the residence and domicile of the name.
The vice president of GEA, Angela Massimino, thus got in touch with the owners of Stella. On the other side of the phone a lady answered who, obviously, as soon as she heard the news of her discovery, remained silent. After she recovered, visibly moved and excited, the woman confirmed that she had lost her dog exactly ten years before her, during a pheasant hunting trip in a Cebano wood. “Since then we have never heard from our dog again,” said the owner of the Breton in tears.
The latter was then invited to visit Refuge 281 for the formal recognition of the four-legged animal together with another family member. The meeting was described by the volunteers themselves. The dog came out very suspicious of the pavilion where she was a guest but, immediately after, her reaction was absolutely special. As soon as Stella heard the tone of voice of her owners her eyes widened and she started wagging her tail wildly. The next step, the run into the arms of the two, was a logical consequence. A few minutes were enough for the dog to rediscover old emotions and ancient memories never forgotten. Finally, the climb in the car to go home.
“The dog, according to what we have been able to ascertain – they explain to Refuge 281 – would have escaped while he was with his owner hunting. Then, but I’m only guessing, it would have been found by someone, perhaps a hunter, not far away. The problem was that this someone, breaking the law, kept it for 10 years without ever bothering to see if the microchip existed or not”. The proof that Stella has never become a street dog, but rather that she has been taken care of and fed, is the good physical and health condition in which she has been found in recent days. Therefore, only one hypothesis would remain: another escape. Whose complaint, however, there has never been and probably never could have been, given and considered the position of the “ghost” owner.
Behind this story, they make GEA point out, there is an always valid moral: when you find an abandoned or stray dog on the street, it is absolutely necessary to ask for the intervention of the Local Health Authority, the police, the kennel or the vet. All subjects able to verify the existence of the microchip and read its contents. As Stella’s adventure teaches, even after years, there is always someone waiting for news of her beloved four-legged friend of whom she has lost track.
