Lucky would be a more appropriate name for Duchess the dog.

The fox-coloured mongrel somehow survived falling on to a railway track, an electric shock and being hit by a train.

Duchess, who at 17 is 119 in dog years, had been enjoying an evening walk with owner Sharon Redman and fellow mongrel Layla, five, when she wandered off into the night.

The dog, which Sharon adopted as a puppy from Battersea Dogs Home in London, disappeared on New Year's Eve.

Sharon was already dressed in her party clothes ready to go out to celebrate the new year when she took her two pets for some exercise.

But as she walked in the dark, she turned round to find Duchess had vanished near her home in The Crestway, Hollingdean, Brighton.

Sharon, 44, a site services manager for Mill View Hospital in Hove, said: "Usually Duchess just plods behind when I walk Layla.

"She's an old lady, she has got senile dementia and can't see very well.

"But this time I turned round and she wasn't there."

A taxi driver put a message out over the airwaves saying Duchess was missing and Sharon's friends, who had arranged to celebrate the new year together, joined her search, which lasted until 4am.

They resumed looking at first light but once again Duchess could not be found.

Sharon said: "I thought someone might have taken her in.

New Year's Eve was a terrible night. It was freezing and pouring with rain.

On New Year's Day Sharon reported Duchess missing to the police, dog shelters and vets across Brighton.

Then, on January 2, she received a phone call from Coastway vets in Kemp Town, Brighton, to say a female dog fitting Duchess's description had been taken in.

Sharon went to the surgery and found Duchess lying in a cage.

The dog was very ill, having been electrocuted on the line and run over by a train.

She had spent New Year's Eve night on the track before a workman found her.

The mystery man had taken her to Coastway.

Sharon said: "She had a burn on her ear where she had been electrocuted and the train must have gone right over her and clipped her because she had blood coming from her ear.

"But when she saw me she started wagging her tail and lifted her head up."

Duchess was so badly injured vets at first thought she may have to be put down but by the Monday morning she was allowed to return home.

Sharon said: "She is absolutely exhausted. I've been carrying her up the stairs.

"It really is amazing what she has been through and the vets have been wonderful.

"She is 17 now and I probably haven't got much more time with her so I'm so glad I've got her back."

"My dogs are everything to me because I'm on my own here.

"They are my babies and I would be lost without them."