It's never too late if happiness comes, the well-known saying goes, and it's perfectly applicable to what happened this month to a 12-year-old dog living on the streets of a village in England.
According to information published by the voluntary organization Lost Dog Recovery UK South on the social network Facebook, a person informed them that there was a black dog wandering along a road near Crawley Down, a town in West Sussex, CNN reported.
After seeing the animal, the good Samaritan took it upon himself to ask the residents of the area if they knew the animal, a Patterdale terrier, and learned that the townspeople had been feeding it for a long time.
The dog Rose, after being rescued. Lost Dog Recovery UK South
Lost Dog Recovery UK South learned that the dog was "in good condition", "had been fed" and had been living in the area for years.
It was then that the organization took on the task of establishing a feeding routine for the animal for a week. The process was captured by a camera installed at the site. The images revealed that the dog's eyebrows and muzzle were graying, an irrefutable sign that it was an animal with many years, CNN expanded.
The camera recorded the animal several times over three days and, to their surprise, the third appeared to be waiting for food.
That opened the door to the possibility of their rescue and, to do so, the group left a cage with a mechanical lock on December 9 in which there was a tempting dinner: a hot roast chicken with pâté.
"We knew the stray dog was picky and we had figured out what she liked," the organization explained, as quoted by CNN.
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The organization said the dog entered suspiciously, "looking over her shoulder and calmly." Despite their mistrust, what everyone wanted happened: the animal, attracted by the tempting smell of food, entered the trap and activated the locking mechanism of the door.
"Of course, she was scared but she was friendly," rescuers said.
Rose, the moment she entered the cage with food. Lost Dog Recovery UK South
It was later learned, after checking the information contained in a microchip that the animal had inserted, that her name was Rose and that she had disappeared in March 2017, just one day after being adopted.
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It was also known that she had been seen for about 10 days after leaving the home of those who had adopted her, but then no more was heard from her, until this month.
Rose is now receiving assistance at Last Chance Animal Rescue in Edenbridge, a town in Kent, England.
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Her original owners, who were contacted, were unable to receive her back because her situation had changed, however, the organization said it had received many calls from people interested in taking her in.