Duke’s long journey home

“He is my miracle dog.

“I was starting to believe I would never see him again.”

These are the words of Mandy Brown, a Wolff Avenue, Primrose resident after being reunited with Duke, her three-and-a-half-year-old German shepherd.

Mandy and Duke were joyfully reunited after almost three months of being apart and Mandy is over the moon with happiness.

“I just couldn’t give up on him even though trying to find him was starting to consume me.

“I knew I had to keep looking,” Mandy said.

Mandy, with the assistance of animal communicator Candace Bentley from Tarot Paws, and the community, finally managed to track Duke’s whereabouts to Driefontein in Limpopo.

Duke holds a very special place in Mandy’s heart.

By the time he was nine months old he had already been pushed from pillar to post, having had five homes before she took him in.

“I took him in with the intention of finding him a good home, however, we just gelled immediately and I decided his home would be with me,” she said.

“We developed such a strong bond and he knew and I knew we were meant to be together.”

Her nightmare of loss and her search for Duke started on August 27 when Duke and Mandy’s 12-year-old German shepherd Nushcka got out of the gate.

“Someone in my area and I seem to have the same frequency for our electric gates and normally when the gates open we will close them, but that day the gate did not close for some reason,” Mandy said.

Duke and Nushcka ran off down Wolff Avenue.

“Luckily a woman managed to get Nushcka into her property and contacted the SPCA, but Duke ran further down the road,” said Mandy.

“A Primrose CPF member spotted him and as he was attempting to catch him a car backfired and Duke took fright and disappeared.”

Mandy’s long search for Duke began.

“I printed and distributed over 6 000 pamphlets in the course of the months long search,” she said.

“They were handed out all over, including to garden services, security companies and to taxi drivers.

“I also made use of social media and I cannot believe how the whole community came together and helped try find him by posting and sharing his photo.

“So many people showed concern and offered assistance.

“It was truly wonderful.”

Mandy also made use of the services of a few animal communicators to try and connect with Duke.

When her friend Eileen Calvert met Candace at a dog expo and explained about the disappearance of Duke, Candace knew she had to be involved and help Mandy.

“She said she wouldn’t charge me, I just needed to contact her, so I gave her a call and explained my situation,” said Mandy.

“She managed to make contact with Duke and he told her he was still with the same people.”

Through investigation Mandy discovered that Duke had been kept at a flat in Primrose for two days before being sent to Limpopo to the resident’s home.

“I managed to get the address and on November 12 Candace and I set off for Limpopo, a 280km drive,” she said.

When the two arrived in Driefontein they asked for directions to the address they had.

“We took a wrong turn and were going down a road when Candace’s pendulum that she was working with stopped and she said she had to go and talk to a man standing in his garden,” Mandy said.

“She chatted to him and showed him Duke’s photo and asked where the address we were trying to find was, but he said the dog was no longer there and he agreed to take us to where Duke was.

“When we got to the address I saw him.

“I just jumped out of the car in tears and ran calling him.”

When Mandy called Duke he tried to lift his head the first two times she called him as if he did not really believe it was her.

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The third time she called he got up, pushed the gate open and came to her.

“I just grabbed him by the collar, put him in the car and started driving,” Mandy said.

“On the way home there was a severe cloudburst, but I just kept going.”

Mandy took Duke to the vet the next day and he was diagnosed with biliary.

“He had lost a lot of weight.

“When he went missing he weighed 42kg and when he returned home he only weighed 25kg,” Mandy said.

Duke is slowly recovering from his ordeal and Mandy will be starting him with swim therapy soon to help build up the muscles in his back legs again.

“He’s a fighter.

“I still find it totally unbelievable that we were able to find him,” Mandy said.

“I urge people to join a few of the community groups on social media as I think the quicker a missing animal is posted the better and also if you find an animal, you can find its owner quickly.

“I am very happy at how the community came together to try and help me find Duke.”

Duke is a loving, gentle soul who loves children and Mandy is so happy that his spirit or temperament was not changed.

“It is a miracle to have him back,” she said.

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Contact the newsroom by emailing: Melissa Hart (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za, Leigh Hodgson (News Editor) leighh@caxton.co.za or Ashley Kiley (Journalist) ashleyk@caxton.co.za.

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