Incredible dog journey’s Occy’s amazing 170km journey
Philippa Johnston feared the worst when her two-year-old Staffy cross Occy went missing in a storm. Two days later an exhausted, dehydrated dog limped through a Sydney railyard.
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It was, as they say in the classics, a dark and stormy night.
Clouds the colour of charcoal scudded across the sky over Newcastle, where Belinda ‘Binny’ Murray was looking after her best friend Philippa Johnston’s pet — a dog that was terrified of thunderstorms.
Sure enough, when Binny arrived at Philippa’s Georgetown home, the storm was raging and there was no sign of two-year-old Staffy cross, Occy. In a blind panic, he had scaled the property’s 1.8m fences and vanished into the darkness.
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After two days of fruitless searching, Binny called and broke the news to Philippa, who was visiting family in New Zealand with baby daughter, Audrey. Philippa’s husband, Nathan, who had named Occy after his surfing hero, Mark Occhilupo, was deployed in the Middle East with the RAAF.
‘I felt horrible that Binny had spent two days feeling sad and stressed, trying to find him. I felt so far away and was just thinking, Gosh, will I ever see him again?’ Philippa says of the November 2014 call.
Every awful scenario imaginable ran through her mind. Had Occy injured himself in his desperation to get out? Was he hiding somewhere, hurt and afraid? They lived just a kilometre from Waratah train station – what if he’d made his way onto the tracks and had been hit?
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Philippa prepared to fly home, but just an hour before she was due to leave her phone rang. The caller was RSPCA inspector Claudia Jones, and she had just picked up a very scared Staffy cross that had been spotted limping through a rail yard. Occy was severely dehydrated and his paws were terribly blistered. He also had some muscle wastage and was utterly exhausted.
Claudia told Philippa she was in Auburn. ‘I was thinking, Where in Newcastle is that?’ says Philippa.
Then the penny dropped. Claudia and Occy were in the Sydney suburb of Auburn.
The determined dog had fled the storm in Newcastle and hadn’t stopped running until he reached Sydney’s inner west, two days and more than 170km later.
His journey would have taken Occy through national parks, across freeways and even over the Hawkesbury River. He was picked up less than 10km from the Strathfield foster home where he had lived before the Johnstons adopted him as a three-month-old puppy.
‘Our best guess is that he followed the tracks all the way. I think at first it must have been, I’ve got to get out of here and get away from this storm and then, I don’t know where I am so I’d better just keep going this way. Only Occy knows for sure.’
When she collected Occy from the vet, Philippa felt pure relief – and Occy seemed to feel the same way. He was filthy and fatigued, but his joy was palpable.
‘He was so tired, limping, just lying down and resting as much as possible. But his tail was going and he was just so excited to see me, like, Oh gosh, I’ve found you – I can go home now. You could see that look in his eyes,’ she says.
Philippa and Nathan welcomed a second daughter, Abigale, in 2015, and the family moved to Brisbane in late 2018. Occy is thriving, though his storm phobia persists — he’s not a fan of Queensland’s tropical tempests.
Occy’s incredible journey only strengthened Philippa’s faith in the bond between humans and pets.
‘It confirmed for me that animals are really remarkable. When they know they’re loved, they will survive and they’ll do whatever they need to do to get back to their family,’ she says.
* This is an edited extract from Incredible Dog Journeys by Laura Greaves (Penguin, $24.99)
Originally published as Incredible dog journey’s Occy’s amazing 170km journey