A SHEEPDOG has made an epic journey back to its birthplace in Wales after running away from a Cumbrian farm.

Pero, a working dog, is believed to have walked 240-miles to its former home in Penrhyncoch, Ceredigion, 12 days after going missing from its new owners in Cockermouth.

The journey would have taken the four-year-old across the Lake District fells and through South Lakeland as it made its way back to west Wales.

Pero eventually turned up on the doorstep of original owners, Alan and Shan James, limping and a little thinner than before but otherwise in good condition.

Mrs James said it was 'a mystery' how Pero found its way back home after being sent to the farm in Cockermouth for a trial period.

"He obviously wasn't happy in his new home. The farmer said he could see he didn't settle. He was shy."

She said Pero had been taken to gather sheep but he ended up 'going across the field and not thinking of turning back'.

"I thought someone would get in touch because he had a microchip, but on Wednesday night after supper my husband went out and there he was on the doorstep waiting for him," Mrs James said.

"He was jumping up at him; he was going mad, just jumping around in circles. It's just a mystery how he has turned up on the doorstep."

Stan Rawlinson, a dog behaviourist, said working dogs tended to have a 'natural compass' and sense of spatial awareness.