A dog who went missing for FIVE years has been reunited with his delighted owner.
Eddie the Yorkshire terrier went missing in 2011 at the age of eight - but had been living with another family just half a mile away.
He had gone missing from his owners’ sister in law’s home in Fallowfield , sparking a massive search in the neighbourhood.
Eddie’s owner, Sandra Wright, from Reddish , placed missing posters in vets, reported it to police and even offered a reward but finally accepted the dog was gone.
So Sandra was astonished five years on to receive a call from vet charity PDSA informing her Eddie had been found.
It is not known what happened to Eddie in the years he went missing but recently he has been cared for by Jeanette Johnson, also from Reddish.
Jeanette took on Eddie, now aged 13, from a neighbour who was struggling to look after him.
She decided to take him to the PDSA to get him checked and chipped and they discovered he already had a chip.
When they scanned it they found he was registered missing five years ago by a family living just half a mile away in Reddish.
Helen Mcentee, vet nurse team leader at Manchester PDSA, was able to contact Eddie’s owners to tell them the news.
Sandra said: “We still had conversations about Eddie – what he might be doing, if he was being looked after, if he was even still alive.
“But never in a million years did we think we’d get him back after all this time.
“Best of all, he arrived home on my daughter’s 16th birthday. I printed off one of Eddie’s ‘missing’ posters from the computer for when she arrived home from school, then when she came in and saw Eddie next to it she was over the moon and said it was the best birthday present ever.”
She added: “We can’t know for sure just how Eddie ended up where he did, but he was clearly well-loved during his time away as he’s still as friendly and loving as ever.
“I’m so grateful to PDSA and everyone who helped to get him back to us – it just shows the difference a microchip can make.”
Jeanette said: ““I have two dogs of my own and adore Yorkies, so when I heard he was in need of a home I didn’t hesitate.
"One of the first things I did was take him to PDSA to get him checked and chipped. They scanned to check if he already had a chip and I was shocked to discover he’d been registered missing five years ago.”
For more information about microchipping visit www.pdsa.org.uk/microchip
