A LOST greyhound, known as the ghost dog, is recovering following her amazing rescue nine years after she first escaped from an Ockendon racing kennels.

Having stalked the greyhound for weeks, Jodie Adams, from Castledon Greyhound Rescue, near Wickford, caught the dog she named Princess not a moment too soon as she had a tumour the size of three fists on her stomach.

Miss Adams, 28, runs the greyhound rescue centre, in Castledon Road, with her mum Sandra Adams, 56, and her sister, Carly Adams, 19.

They first heard about Princess, believed to be aged ten, from trainers at the Ockendon Kennel Complex, Ockendon Road, North Ockendon.

They called her the ghost dog as she was often seen in the fields around the kennels but ran off if approached. Tom Prendeville, manager of the Ockendon Kennel Complex, said he remembered a dog escaping, but was surprised it had survived so long in the wild.

He said: “I remember a dog getting out, it was just after I arrived, so must have been about nine or ten years ago.

“After that people kept telling us they’d seen it but we couldn’t catch the thing.”

Miss Adams eventually caught Princess by creating a den out of straw bales, and penning her inside after she had ventured in to sleep.

Princess has since recovered from a successful, but complicated operation to remove the malignant cancer and is now enjoying indoor life for the first time in many years.