My German Shepherd Toris and His Long Journey

by Lukas
(Vilnius, Lithuania)

Hello everyone,

first of all I would like to apologize for my English as it is not my native language. Second, I would like to tell a story about my dog, best friend and a family member Toris. Hope you will like it :)

He is the second German Shepherd in our family and a descendant of our first German Shepherd dog Artis. We live in a capital of a small country in Europe called Lithuania.

As my grandparents in summertime live outside the city (160 km) in the countryside we often visit them to get some fresh air and fun at the lake. Toris always likes the journeys by car and is the first one to get in the car when we are preparing.

In the summer of 2010 me and my girlfriend went for a vacation to Turkey for a week and we left Toris at my uncle's house next to ours while he has a big yard with a fence where the dog can play around like at our place. The dog was nervous that we are packing and not letting him in the car as always. When we left we were thinking about him almost every day, how we we miss him and so on :)

The day we came back, my uncle came to pick us up from the airport, and when we asked how is Toris he said that he ran away... He broke the fence and ran of... My girlfriend started crying instantly and I was shocked and angry that he couldn't look after a dog for a week...

The days went by, we were roaming the city after work every evening, we called every dog pound in the city, every dog shelter, put out posters, adds on the internet, but no one has found him. Even all the neighbors were involved in the search. It was a good thing, because we knew that he was still alive, maybe someone took care of him.

After a month we didn't know where to look... AND! We got a call from a dog shelter, the girl asked if we found our dog, I said no, we are still searching.

She said "well my friend was staying in his lake house and some German Shepherd came to his house. Unlikely, because it is 70 km away from the city, but maybe it is your dog and you should try to call him". I took his number, called him, he said that I can come at his place because he brought the dog to the city.

When I came to his house and he opened the door... I could believe my eyes. Toris jumped on me started to lick my face and bark, I couldn't resist and started to cry. And I am one of those people who doesn't cry, but even now when I remember i'm feeling a lump in my throat :)

He was so skinny, that even the hair on his back were standing, the feet were like after manicure after running so much on the asphalt and concrete.
The guy told me that they were sitting at his lake house with friends, they are all hunters. When they saw a dog near the bushes, they whistled and Toris came to them, they gave some food and he ran of.

Next morning he was sleeping near the front door of their summerhouse. The guy said that everyone wanted to adopt Toris, but he said that his friend was a volunteer in a dog shelter, so at first he will ask if no one was looking for a German Shepherd. AND I AM SO HAPPY AND THANKFUL THAT HE DID!

When I brought him back home my girlfriend was crying and laughing at the same time. I can say that was the best day of our lives.

As I understand now he was running to our lake house where we always visit my grandparents, because the place he was found was almost a halfway. And on the same road. It took him a month and some days to get there. I can't think of other reason why he was running so far away and in that direction. But other thing what surprises me is how he found his way out of the city trough all the street with traffic and the river.

My neighbor works as a manager at a news paper. She told this story to her coworkers journalists and they were fascinated about this story. So they wrote a column (I found a link on the internet, but only the mobile version is left some how http://m.lrytas.lt/?data=20100925&id=sos25_a6100925&view=2)
So that is our story. Hope you liked it :)