A lost dog with dementia who found her way home two years after vanishing has died 24 hours after being reunited with her owners.
Maltese-cross Lolly was 16 years old when she escaped from her home in Adelaide after a gate was accidentally left open in December 2022.
Owners Heather Coombes and Guy Frantzen searched for Lolly for months and feared the worse because of her of her condition, 7News reported.
The couple had given up hope of ever seeing their fur baby alive again – until last week when a vet called them to say that Lolly, now nearly 18, had been found after being identified by her microchip.
Lolly was found looking frail and worse for wear on an outback road north of Port Augusta, more than 300km from home.
How she ended up there and survived almost two years so far away from home remains a mystery.
On Wednesday, Lolly was smothered with kisses as she was reunited with her owners and younger canine sister Angel – something the couple never imagined would happen.
‘I’m very emotional, very sad (at) the way she looks — she’s very, very thin, very fragile — but she’s back at home in time to have her 18th birthday,’ Ms Coombes said as she fought back tears.
Owners Heather Coombes and Guy Frantzen had an emotional reunion with their ‘fur baby’ Lolly on Wednesday before tragedy struck one day later
‘I’m about to cry again as I’m ver emotional.
‘She’s our baby.’
Ms Coombes believed that Lolly knew she was home because she was wagging her tail.
‘She usually makes a funny little noise, like a purr of a cat, and she was doing that while I was holding her,’ she said.
She has owned Lolly since she was a puppy, saying the white pooch was part of the family.
‘She gets Christmas presents, Christmas cards, she gets spoilt rotten. She is everything to us,’ Ms Coombes said.
Ms Coombes wants to ‘scream’ at the person who possibly took Lolly, but is ‘so grateful’ to those who found her.
The Maltese-cross (pictured before she went missing) was 16 when she escaped the house after a gate was accidentally left open. The nearly 18-year-old pooch sadly died only a day after being reunited with her family
But in a heartbreaking twist, Lolly took a turn for the worse and died surrounded by her family on Thursday – just a day after returning home.
Ms Coombes believed that Lolly decided to hold on to make it back to her loved ones before she passed away and is grateful to have had one more day with her precious pet.
Ms Coombes also hoped that their story is a reminder to owners to get their furry friends microchipped so reunions are possible their pet ever gets lost.
