Frankie's Back: Missing Dog Is Found a Year Later, Miles From Home

Photo via Missing Dogs Massachusetts/Facebook

A year ago, Frankie’s mom had to give up her home, and her dog. A family member agreed to care for the dog, and also took her to a barbecue one day. It was uneventful enough, until Frankie got spooked by a noise and darted off.

Frankie was missing somewhere in Wakefield, MA, or beyond, and volunteers gathered together to find this Shepherd mix. Frankie’s mom Sharrie Covell, and the volunteers, never gave up hope, and never stopped searching. Now, a year later, Frankie was found many miles away, and is finally going home, as Missing Dogs Massachusetts reported on its Facebook page.

Missing Dogs Massachusetts (MDM), a vastly popular Facebook site for those seeking their missing dogs, was highly instrumental in coordinating Frankie’s journey home, and her care afterward.

Since the time Frankie went missing in April of 2014, volunteers plastered the area with flyers, set up cameras and maintained feeding stations. The efforts of these women from the North Shore yielded no results.

In late June of last year, came a spark of hope; Frankie was spotted on a camera on a trail in Wakefield.

“Our hopes rose and quickly fell when she was not seen again,” writes Missing Dogs Massachusetts.

MDM caught an interview that Frankie’s mom did with WHDH-TV Channel 7, with Covell still distraught over her dog and also hoping the coverage would generate some sightings.

“She’s my best friend. She knows all my secrets,” Covell told WHDH-TV, “She’s my buddy. She helped me through really rough times.

The coverage brought no calls of sightings.

Until later. Much later.

Last week, MDM connected with a local feline rescue that had been contacted by a homeowner in Newburyport. The woman said she had a dog “living on her property since the first snow fell.” Animal Control had not been able to get the dog.

When MDM saw the photo, they immediately thought it could be Frankie.

The Utterbacks, who owned the property in Newburyport, worked with MDM, as did the Utterbacks’ neighbors, to set up and secure a trap in the yard.

And they found success on Easter at 12:40 a.m., when Frankie slipped into their trap. Rescuers were ultimately sure it was Frankie because of the microchip match. Frankie may have been living under the home’s porch for much of the winter, reported WHDH-TV.

“We have had so many good stories, but I don’t think we all quite expected this would be who it was and where it was,” Kris Ericson, director at MDM, told Patch. “When I spoke with the homeowner on Friday where the dog was ‘staying,’ and she described the dog to me - and that others had said it was a coyote - I almost fell over when she sent me the many pictures she had been taking throughout the winter of the dog. This was no coyote, and what I saw was the strong resemblance to Frankie. I immediately sent it to our other director, Beth, and to the volunteers who had been working with Frankie’s family.”

On April 7, Frankie, who had been treated at an emergency veterinarian, was transferred to VCA Wakefield. During her winter journey, she shed 40 pounds, broke a tooth and contracted some tick-borne illnesses.

Covell is trying to move to a place where dogs are allowed, but PAWS New England will foster Frankie in the meantime, finding her a home if Covell cannot take her back.

A donation page has been set up for those wishing to help cover the costs. A little more than $2,200 has been raised so far.

“After 367 days, watching the recognition come over Frankie’s face was a wonderful thing to see!” wrote MDM. “She talked (we are sure she had quite a story to tell) had kisses & wags for Sharrie and her girls, and most amazingly, fell into a deep restful sleep.....probably the first that she has had in a year!”

Ericson said the reunion was sweet, touching and emotional for everyone involved. Frankie’s “little inner spirit,” she said, was shining a bit more as she got comfortable and relaxed back in the arms of her mom.

“She even did little tricks and high-fives,” said Ericson.

Covell on Monday updated her Facebook profile pic to a photo of her clutching Frankie, garnering many “likes,” and comments such as, “This had to be the best story I’ve heard in a long time....You have an amazing dog. If we could only know what he [sic] has been through the past year. He [sic] must have some amazing stories.”

“I think all the dogs are special,” said Ericson, “but in this instance, the initial circumstances of her going missing, then the story of the family’s challenges in general, and that sweet face that we just knew from a flyer ... that suddenly became even more real to us. This just gives us and other owners out there much hope that it can happen at any time (and as we learn all the time, anywhere).”

Patch has reached out to Covell, and will update this story if new information becomes available.

Following is a link to some video that was taken after the initial reunion, via YouTube: