BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Tracy Dove assumed the worst after her 1-year-old dog named Charlie disappeared in 2006. Days without the animal turned into years, and Dove figured the brown-and-white pointer was dead.
Then, last week, Dove’s phone rang: Charlie had been found alive near the south Alabama town of Brewton. A veterinary clinic tracked her down using a microchip that Dove had implanted in the dog when it was young.
“I was shocked, overwhelmed. I cried,” Dove said in an interview Thursday. “It’s amazing.”
No one knows where the dog has been for the last decade, but Charlie has a gray muzzle now and a cancerous tumor in his chest. Charlie will undergo surgery at a veterinary clinic in Mobile as soon as next week, and Dove plans to bring him home as soon as possible afterward.
“It will be a lengthy road for him, but he’ll be home,” said Dove, who lives near Birmingham in Corner and works as a dental assistant.