Yahoo Lifestyle We found our dog after six years!
(Clockwise from bottom) Kayd, Kelly, Cohyn, Tyler and Rhy are all happy to have Loui home.
An amazing phone call last month was the best Christmas present this Sunshine Coast family could have wished for!
For Tyler and Kelly North and their three boys, Kayd, Cohyn and Rhy, nothing could have prepared them for the incredible news that their beloved pooch Loui had been found – six years since she had mysteriously gone missing.
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‘I took the call and it was a vet from the Gold Coast. He said after checking a microchip on a dog they had found, it was registered to me, and her name is Loui!’ explains 36-year-old Kelly.
‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – I asked him to repeat it, and Tyler and the boys were staring at me as though I’d gone mad. Then I put my hand over the receiver and said: “Loui, she’s alive – they’ve found our Loui!”’
Kelly with Loui the puppy.
Rewind the clock almost 10 years, and Kelly and Tyler were newlyweds living on the Gold Coast. Tyler was desperate to get Kelly the ultimate wedding gift, and knowing her love for dogs, he gave his new bride a cute golden labrador puppy.
Christened Loui, she was one of the family – until one fateful weekend when they went away, leaving the pup at home.
‘We couldn’t take Loui with us so Mum came by and fed her and looked after her,’ Kelly recalls. ‘We came home a couple of days later and she was gone. I don’t think I have ever shed so many tears. And for little Kayd, he was heartbroken knowing his best mate was gone.’
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The family searched high and low, and despite all their efforts, including the offer of a substantial reward, they figured Loui had either been dog-napped... or worse.
Heartbroken, the family moved north to the Sunshine Coast, where they eventually got a new pup, another golden labrador named Sammy. But for Tyler, there was always a feeling that maybe one day Loui might just turn up.
Baby Kayd with Loui before he disappeared.
‘She was always such a big part of the family, and we often said: “Imagine if she did come home,”’ Tyler remembers.
What followed next, he recalls, is straight from the movies. ‘I saw her and she came running towards me, her tail wagging, and she was licking me and jumping all over me! She definitely knew who I was,’ Tyler says.
While the family still wonders where Loui has been living all this time, Kelly is just grateful their story has a happy ending. ‘Whatever happened in those six years doesn’t matter anymore – she’s finally home, and this time she’s here to stay!’
