(The Jersey Journal posted the following article by Craig Garretson on its website on December 12.)
KEARNY, N.J. — Yardly, the rail-savvy mutt who abruptly disappeared last week after hanging around a railroad maintenance yard for years, turned up just as inexplicably late Wednesday night.
She was exhausted and filthy, but apparently eager to resume her post as the unofficial mascot of NJ Transit’s Meadowlands Maintenance Complex.
“They called me at about 8:30 last night and told me they found her, and I got right over here and I haven’t left since,” said Paul Bauer, the machinist who first found the mixed-breed Labrador retriever and Dalmatian about seven years ago, when she was an eight-month-old puppy hanging around the yard.
“We brought her to the vet to get her cleaned up and checked out,” Bauer, of Jersey City, said. “They took X-rays and gave her some medicine for a little cough, but they said everything looks fine.”
No one’s sure what happened to Yardly, but Bauer suspects someone took her away. In fact, a security guard at the yard said last week that he saw someone pick up a dog near the gate and drive off, but he wasn’t sure it was Yardly.
“There’s no way to know, but I don’t think she would’ve walked away on her own. She eats too good here,” he said. “I think somebody took her and then, with all the publicity, let her go.
“But I don’t think they let her go too close by, because she was absolutely exhausted and absolutely filthy. This dog was pure white and when we found her she was pure black. It took them three baths to get her back to normal.”
Bauer said the vet thought the dog hadn’t had much to eat during the week she was missing. He said the railroad yard workers will be making up the difference.