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Buddy, a four-year-old beagle, was reunited with his New Jersey
family
on Monday after 98 days spent on an uninhabited New Jersey
island.
Buddy, a four-year-old beagle, was reunited with his New
Jersey family
on Monday after 98 days spent on an uninhabited New
Jersey island.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale — a tail,
really — about a
brave beagle and a family's refusal to give up.
Buddy, a 4-year-old beagle, was reunited with his New Jersey family
on
Monday after 98 days spent on unihabited Gull Island in New
Jersey'
Manasquan Inlet. The Kelleys, of Eatontown, N.J., lost
control of
Buddy on Aug. 31 as the family attempted to switch the
dog's leash
while frolicking on Dog Beach in the Manasquan.
Two months later, Buddy — who had lost so much weight he was little
more than skin and bones — was spotted along railroad tracks near the
deserted island.
"The Coast Guard said they had seen him digging
in the sand," Edith
Kelley told FoxNews.com. "He might've been
looking for clams or sand
crabs."
Exactly how the dog survived
is unclear, but Kelley said Coast Guard
officials told her the dog
might have survived on dead seagulls found
on the island. But by the
time a local man, "Muskrat" Jack Neary,
successfully trapped Buddy on
Monday, the once-35-pound dog had
dropped to just 19 pounds.
Kelley's husband, Charles, said he still can't fathom how Buddy made
it back home.
"I'm still walking around in a funk, it's hard to
believe," he told
FoxNews.com. "I mean, is this true? It's hard to
believe."
Edith Kelley, whose son Patrick cares for Buddy, said
the family is
simply "ecstatic" to be reunited with their "miracle"
dog.
"I couldn't believe it — after 98 days," she said. "And he's
behaving
like he never left. He didn't go feral."
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