Just a shaggy dog story?

(Click on the title link to read the whole story.)

This is one of those stories that defy logic but have a happy ending all the same.Apparently this dog travelled 15 miles home across motorway and moorland after a marathon 31-hour trek that took the mongrel across the M1, four major A roads and miles of treacherous moorland. Only then was he reunited with its ecstatic owners and their kids.

In a story reminiscent of 1940s film Lassie Come Home, a family who had given up their whippet-terrier cross Jack for dead looked outside to find him asleep on their doorstep. The mongrel dog – exhausted and sore-pawed, but very much alive – had walked 15 miles along an unfamiliar route, apparently untroubled by obstacles including a four-lane bypass and one of the country's busiest motorways.

Even more surprising was the dog's bravery is given the fact that he suffers from a fear of traffic, and walks with a limp, after being knocked down by a lorry five years ago. Jack's address is not printed on his collar so there is no chance that a well-wisher could have found him at the side of the road and dropped him at the house, Mr Cooper, the dog's owner, added.

Jack is now recuperating with the help of Coopers' two sons Adam and Rob. Mr Cooper said: "We bandaged his legs but he's out walking again now, although he is staying a little closer."

I guess it just shows you how attached pets get to the their owners as we always talk about it the other way round e.g. how pet owners get so attached to their pets. It seems that at times the love is reciprocal.