Rosie Homden with Sammy on a beach in Kos before his mammoth journey to a new home in Herne.

by Joe Walker

joewalker@thekmgroup.co.uk

A stray dog travelled more than 2,000 miles to be reunited with a family who fell in love with him on a budget holiday to Greece.

Scraggly one-year-old Sammy, who has twice been run over, was whisked through 11 countries by land and sea to set up home with the Homdens in Herne.

The family, who live in Ridgeway Road, Herne, had fallen for the malnourished puppy after he limped past them on the Greek island of Kos in October.

They had to leave him behind but were reunited at Dover port on Saturday after a four-month battle to get him to the UK.

Tracy Homden, her husband Steven, daughter Rosie and Jeffery, a 60-year-old Downs Syndrome sufferer they care for, spotted Sammy just days after arriving on the sun-kissed island.

Mum-of-three Tracy said: “We were having something to eat in a restaurant. He was really skinny, had a big scar on his face and could hardly walk. We couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

“We asked the restaurant owner who looked after him but he said no one did and that he’d been run over twice. It was really upsetting.

“We went to the beach the next day and saw him again. He was with us for the rest of the holiday after that.

“We’d leave him under an umbrella at night and he’d still be sitting there waiting for us the next morning.”

Before flying home the family arranged for a local woman to feed Sammy, but after touching down in England they realised they’d left the newest member of their family behind.

Tracy, 45, said: “It was so hard to leave him there so we decided to try and get him over to us. It was hard to get any response at first, but in the end we had some luck.

“We paid for him to be fed and have his jabs and castration in Kos and then looked at getting him to the UK.

“The cheapest flight we could find was £1,700, but luckily an Animal Rescue worker from Luxembourg offered to help.”

Sammy was ferried from Kos to Athens before enduring a 2,600-mile drive to Luxembourg, where he stayed in kennels for three weeks.

He was then driven to Calais on Saturday before catching the ferry to Dover, where his new family were waiting. Tracy said: “When he saw us he went bonkers. He definitely remembered us and made me and Rosie cry.

“He’s such a gentle giant and has settled in so well already. The weather’s probably not what he’s used to and I can’t see him fancying a dip in the sea, but he seems really happy. People were saying how stupid we were for doing it but we didn’t care. It ended up costing us more than our holiday, but he’s worth every penny.”