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If home is where the heart is, then Fred the dog has it made.
The big, friendly dog who charmed strangers on a cross-Canada train trip since Friday won hearts again last night when his train arrived at Central Station and the seven-year-old Kugsha was reunited with relatives of his late master, Cyril Roy of Montreal, who died near Nanaimo.
It was the conclusion of a rescue effort that brought more than a few strangers — and a grieving family — together in the belief that a dog is family, even when times are tough.
“He’s like a magnet for people — he has such a gentle, happy way,” said Mélanie Pellerin, 34, who along with her Beaconsfield, Que., neighbour Christianne Hendershott, 24, volunteered to fly to Vancouver on Jan. 1 and escort the dog back on the train.
Fred’s large size made it difficult to get a crate big enough to ship him by air before the airlines’ Dec. 15 deadline for shipping live animals before it gets too cold.
People took pictures of the dog and his escorts at train stations along the way, and fellow passengers on the train have been telling Fred’s story to strangers, Pellerin said.
Lynda Roy, 56, said her brother would be pleased.
“Somewhere, Cyril is looking down at this and he’s smiling,” Roy said about her brother, 58, who was found dead in a trailer Nov. 30 in Nanoose Bay, just north of Nanaimo, after succumbing to heart failure brought on by diabetes.
Fred was at his side and did not want to leave, Lynda said. The pair had been inseparable since Cyril rescued the dog from a pound in B.C. at six months of age.
When Cyril last left Montreal in March, he was hoping to leave behind the pain of his financial and health problems, and was heading for the wilds of B.C., where he had worked for years as a forest fire spotter for the park service.
It was the last time Lynda Roy saw her brother alive.
When he died, he was nearly homeless, living in the trailer in a remote part of a friend’s property.
The seven-year-old dog was taken to a pound at the SPCA in Parksville. “They said he was unadoptable because he does not like cats,” Lynda Roy said.
In Nanaimo last night, Stephanie Walker, who runs the Walkers Animal Rescue group there, was delighted to hear that Fred had reached his destination.
Walker went to get Fred at the SPCA, had him groomed and took care of him for a few weeks until New Year’s Day, when she took the ferry from Vancouver Island and brought him to Pellerin.
“It’s a great story about everybody pulling together,” Walker, 39, said.
