The Oley family is happy to have their 11-year-old poodle, Allie, home after being missing for over a week. Pictured with Allie is: (from left) Joe, Caroline, Joseph and Jennifer.
Marty Gordon
Contributing writer
Allie is your typical small dog, one that enjoys her normal walk around the neighborhood and just running around in the back yard with her Christiansburg family.
But it’s her latest adventure that has a lot of people scratching their heads.
Joe and Jennifer Oley decided to go to the beach for a week earlier this month and had to leave the family’s 11-year-old poodle with a dog sitter. While they were gone, Allie wondered away from Republic Street and thus began the great adventure.
She was missing for almost 10 days. The family returned home and with the help of friends and co-workers, the search was on.
Approximately 1,000 flyers were posted around town offering a reward. Her picture was plastered on Facebook, and a large group of people scoured almost three square miles within the town.
Joe and his family walked the same neighborhoods over and over. There was no sign of the dog.
No reports to police and none to the animal shelter. Joe’s parents and brother even drove down from Richmond to help with the search. The Facebook post had been shared almost 500 times.
“We had done everything you could imagine,” Joe said. “We had almost given up hope of ever finding her.”
Postal carriers and newspaper delivery people were alerted and by day eight, still nobody had spotted the dog.
Joe, who had taken off several days from work, admits he drove his car around neighborhoods just hoping she would hear the sound of a familiar vehicle.
“We just couldn’t figure out why no one had seen or heard her,” he said.
The family had fallen asleep late Friday night when Oley heard a noise at the back door of his home.
“It was a weird yelp, and I thought it might have been one of my kids’ games making a noise,” he said.
Joe then heard what he thought was a scratching at the back door.
“I was still half asleep and was rubbing my eyes when I saw Allie standing at the back door of our deck,” he said.
Joe said that he was overjoyed and starting crying when he saw the family’s missing dog.
Again, Allie had gone missing near Republic Street and somehow made her way to the family home on Village Lane. That’s an estimated three miles as the crow flies, but Oley believes his dog had been wondering around town for days, so he doesn’t know how many miles she put on her legs.
Allie was a little dehydrated and lost approximately four or five pounds, had a few briars attached to her fur and a few ticks she picked up along the way.
Her four paws showed a lot of wear and tear from walking so many miles. But for the most part, she was just happy to be home and to see her family again.
She spent the first two days lying on the family’s living room couch. Wednesday, she showed signs of the dog the family has come to love.
“We don’t know how she got here, but we are ecstatic that she figured out how to come home,” Joe said.
So, for 10 days, the little 11-year-old grey poodle with brown spots managed to dodge cars and probably a lot of wild animals to find her way back home.
“It’s one of those stories you hear about on the national news about an animal returning home after being lost for a long period of time,” Joe said.
Her family is just glad to have her home.