Terrier's 200-mile trip

A dog who went missing from his London home turned up 200 miles and 48 hours later in Liverpool.

For Adam Cole, the return of 12-year-old West Highland Terrier, Millie is the best Christmas present. Police and animal experts can only speculate whether she was "dognapped" or jumped on to a vehicle heading north after she rushed out of an open front door without her collar to avoid having a bath.

Mr Cole, 51, put up dozens of posters in the streets around the Portobello Road where he lives, and offered a £100 reward for information leading to Millie's recovery. "I spent days looking for her and then I thought, 'Well, that's it, I'm never going to see her again'. I was really heartbroken," he said.

But two weeks after Millie disappeared Mr Cole got a call from a vet in Liverpool. Millie had been spotted in a park one evening in Toxteth, 48 hours after she disappeared, and then been taken home wet and shivering by Kathy Thomas the following morning.

Mrs Thomas kept Millie and christened her Mitzy after her local police said they had no record of the missing dog.

Two weeks later Mrs Thomas took Mitzy to the vet with a sore leg. The vet scanned her for a microchip, which some owners have implanted under their pet's skin. He found one, which identified the dog as Millie and gave her address in W11.

"I got a call for the vet and I was gobsmacked," said Mr Cole, director of an internet information service. "I'd almost given her up for dead. I got the train to Liverpool the following day. It was a 10-hour round trip, including the two hours I spent chatting and drinking tea with Mrs Thomas, but it was all worth it."

Mrs Thomas was sad to lose the dog she had grown so fond of but she received the £100 reward, plus another £100 to thank her for caring for Millie.

But the real mystery remains: how did Millie get to Liverpool? Mr Cole's vet, Andrew Prentis, of the Hyde Park Veterinary Centre who helped to search for Millie, said: "It is quite possible she was stolen, Westies are quite popular little dogs these days. She could have then run away from the thief when they got home. Dog stealing is a growing problem.

"On the other hand she could have simply jumped on to the back of a lorry and jumped off again as it was unloading.

"We'll never know, but we can say that Mrs Thomas treated Millie really well. So well, in fact that she had put on a lot of weight when I came to examine her. It was all apparently down to being fed sausages which Millie had become particularly fond of."

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