A couple have been reunited with their dog who was stolen from their garden more than seven years ago.
Rita and Philip Potter said it was a “dream come true” to see Daisy, a Labrador, again after the RSPCA tracked her down.
The dog was stolen from the couple’s home in Norfolk in November 2017, sparking social media appeals and calls for tougher legislation on pet thefts.
Witnesses claimed they saw the dog being bundled into a truck near their home by suspected backyard breeders, who profit from breeding animals in often unsafe conditions.
Mr and Mrs Potter reported the incident to the police, but the number plate could not be traced at the time.
Now 13 years old, Daisy was found more than 200 miles away in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, by an RSPCA inspector conducting routine investigations.
After coming across the Labrador on 2 February, the inspector took her to a vet and checked her microchip – where she found contact details for Mr and Mrs Potter.
The couple struggled to hold back tears as they saw Daisy again, as Mrs Potter, 80, said she and her husband are “so, so grateful” for the RSCPA.
“We kept a photograph on the mantlepiece and would look at it every day thinking of her and where she might be,” she said.
“So it is an absolute dream come true that the RSPCA found her and have returned her to us – where she belongs – we are so, so grateful.”
Kim Walters, the RSPCA investigator, also said she was “a bit choked from listening to them and clearly how much they loved her”.
She added: “It was great telling them that we could get her back home soon once we had made sure she was fit enough to travel and we had arrangements in place for the four-hour journey to take place.”
Andy Cook, behavioural welfare adviser at the Brent Knoll Animal Centre, said it appeared that Daisy had been used for backyard breeding, and had “a number of mammary masses” – lumps that develop in breast tissue, which can be cancerous.
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He said Daisy also “has slight hip dysplasia and her coat was quite dirty when she came to us as though she had not been groomed for many years”.
“She is quite elderly for a Labrador at the age of 13 and we think she is deaf, but she is adorable,” he added.
“She really is the sweetest girl and will wag her tail whenever she sees you but since she was stolen it is clear she has had a hard life.”
Mrs Potter said: “We know she is elderly now and has health issues but whatever time she has left she will now be surrounded by lots of love and attention.”
It comes just months after another stolen dog called Daisy was reunited with her owners – eight years after being taken from her home in Mole Valley, Surrey, in 2016.
The cocker spaniel, who was one at the time, was taken along with three other working gun dogs from the garden kennels they were being housed in.
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Surrey Police were made aware someone had tried to update the details on Daisy’s microchip on Tuesday 29 October, leading to the reunion.
Last year, the government passed the Pet Abduction Act, which could result in perpetrators facing a maximum five-year prison sentence, a fine, or both.
