A Miracle From The Ashes Of Lockdown 2020 (or Cracker’s Adventures)

by Linda

As discussed in earlier blogs, we hear some quite incredible stories and this one in particular stands out as as example of how life can be stranger than fiction.

In April 2020, Annabel, our Practice Manager had just moved home...audaciously without consulting her handsome ginger cat, Cracker...
The affronted Cracker decided enough was enough. One morning he ate his breakfast, and slipped out of the open door...and disappeared, leaving no forwarding address. 
Annabel was devastated. At the back of her mind she felt he had tried to return to his old address and she and her family spent many hours desperately calling him. That night before bed, they even left his litter tray outside...

Days became weeks and still no sign of Cracker. His disappearance had been documented in the local papers and all the vets in the area had been called, all to no avail.

As we all recall April 2020 was the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, the eerie quietness of deserted roads and streets and very few people about. The curfew of one hour’s exercise a day being the mantra for everyone except Key Workers (some of which were us at PHP).
To add to the general peculiarity of this time, Wareham Forest was alight, burning for days and days, the weather that year was dry and sunny, and this didn’t help extinguish the flames at all. Annabel’s hopes of finding Cracker were very low...the chances of him perishing in the flames would seem the most likely explanation for his continued disappearance.

Almost a year later, February 2021, one of our nurses working in our Wareham Practice, Lisa, rang Annabel to enquire if Cracker had ever returned. This was very random, and Annabel said no and why? It was without doubt, the reply that Annabel could not believe.

“We think he is here in our Wareham Vets!”

That morning a client had made an appointment to see the vet as the ‘stray’ they had adopted that previous Christmas, had a bad ear. His name was Bertie and he had been living in Bloxworth. 

The procedure with any pet brought in to us as a stray is to search for a microchip, which is what Tessa, the duty vet did immediately. The familiar ping of an existing chip rang out of the scanner and the number was noted down to check on the computer. The number, incredibly, was registered to Annabel! Lisa, on the other end of the phone was almost deafeaned by the shriek on the other end of the telephone...”Yes, he was alive, yes he was well and no he didn’t look at all malnourished!”

With total disbelief, Annabel drove straight to our Wareham Practice where she was re-united with her beloved Cracker. He had survived the flames of the Wareham Forest, and thankfully due to Lockdown, survived the normally treacherous A35.
Without doubt having been microchipped as a tiny kitten had proved his salvation and indirectly, the Covid curfew had worked in his favour.

Cracker returned home and it was almost as though he had never been away…..except for one thing...he demanded his water to be served only in a fresh, clean glass bowl....he had obviously acquired airs and graces in his adoptive home! 

The homecoming of Cracker that day, was to Annabel and her family, a definite miracle emerging from the ashes of Lockdown 2020.