Have you ever temporarily lost your dog?

We lost our daughter's Irish Terrier for about 3 minutes when she ran off in Richmond Park and returned to the car park. We had walked her regularly since she was a puppy but s.i.l. banned us from ever walking her again. They pay a dog walker instead.
Puppy memories must be long because whenever their dog meets us she greets us ecstatically as if we were visitors from heaven.
 
We went up to Exmoor once for a day trip and were walking in the woodlands around the Horner area; and a deer ran across in front of the dogs. They just disappeared. Were gone for over 3hrs. It was late afternoon and it was just beginning to get dimpsy and we'd decided one of us was gonna have to stay in the location they'd gone from and the other would drive into the nearest town to get some supplies of food & try and find some warm blankets.

Luckily one dog came into sight just as it was getting dark, and then the other about 30 mins later.

Both thoroughly wrecked, and filthy.

We loaded 'em both up and home we went. Glad we stayed.
 
Twice:

Once when he got chased by some absolute bozo's out of control dogs and bolted in terror into thick fog. He was missing for about 30 mins, ran all the way home along the lanes, and then back, and I had to rugby tackle him to the ground to get hold of him. Terrifying - I knew if I didn't get him 1st time, I wouldn't get a second chance. The fog probably saved his life as it was so bad it meant cars were having to slow right down.

Once more recently, when he got shocked by the electric fence at the yard...it was just getting dark, he had hi-vis reflective coat and light up collar on thank goodness, but I saw him disappear up the public footpath and onto the lane. He was missing again for about 30 mins. I found out, after he'd been located, that he had run onto the canal towpath (and had a good bark at some people coming along it the other way), and then legged it to the pub 2 mins away and hung around by the door waiting for someone to let him in - which is where my OH found him, whilst I was driving around the local lanes looking elsewhere. Again, he wouldn't approach OH, who took a different approach than I would have and gruffly said "GET HERE NOW", at which he wandered up, tail between legs! I would have been too worried about him bolting again to sound cross with him. I'd only taken him to that pub a handful of times previously, but he clearly knew it was a "safe place" (or somewhere he was likely to get treats, maybe...).

He's strictly on lead if he ever comes to the yard now, but I avoid taking him now anyway as he's still scared of the electric fencing and just wants to get away. Such a shame, he used to be a cracking little yard dog. He's rarely off-lead at all now, to be fair; the unexpected can (and clearly does) happen and I never want to go through the stress and guilt of him going missing or anything happening to him.
 
I lost one of my mother labs when she was on holiday .
she slipped off I don’t remember how and I found her trotting down the slip Road of the A 1 .
Years ago our dog trotted off to the house of a lab owner in the village when the Bitch was in heat we got him because he strayed with his previous owner .
He luckily did not have to cross a road to do this you always had to keep a close eye on him .
I lost Pearl and Dram once for what seemed like hours they had gone to the woods and where digging a hole .it was only 30 mins
It’s the worse feeling losing your dog.
 
Once, working dogs on a shoot near Cambridge with a footpath on the boundary. Walkers with dogs appeared on path as we were picking up birds, one had a large bully type which was off lead and made a bee line for my spaniel. Chased him off into the distance and it was hours later he turned up in my pony's stable on the other side of the farm. Bully was shot chasing sheep that evening. Spaniel thankfully wasn't badly injured.
 
New Year’s Day in the woods last month, Bear decided to make his way back to the car, fortunately he followed the usual route. I spoke to a lot of people that day, discovered a new path, did an awful lot more walking than usual. It was 20/25 minutes til I found him and I was properly panicked. He hasn’t gone off since, think he panicked himself.

He and Zak ran after a muntjac over ten years ago. I posted on Facebook, a friend of my trainer saw it, my trainer phoned just as I came into signal range and I agreed I’d like some help looking. It was about 10pm. It’s very dark and quiet in those woods at night! I caught a glimpse of a white tail behind the car, Bear, then spotted Zak, who’d somehow lost his muzzle. They didn’t really leave our sight bar quick forays into the undergrowth so it was terrifying, especially with the M25 not too far. That horrible feeling is just awful.
 
Yes, when my daughter left the gate open. Post on Facebook " found this dog in Oldfield" - "it's my dog" - " where do you live?" - "Oldfield" FFS! 😒 Some do-gooder put her on a lead and took her home with her so the dog was unable to come back when I whistled & called her.
 
I've posted about this before, and I will again.

The worst part.... it wasn't my dog. It was my friend's dog (she was also my flatmate at the time) who I was dogsitting while the friend was in the US for three weeks.

Take her hillwalking, my friend said. She's fine off lead so long as you can't see any sheep.

Myself and another friend went on a hike up a Corbett in Arrochar called Ben Donich. About 2/3 of the way up the mountain, the dog perked up her ears and trotted off into the clag. I called her name and waved chorizo around. She did not recall. I'd read somewhere that you should stay in the place where you last saw the dog, so myself and my friend did. For maybe half an hour. Dog did not reappear. We were getting cold and decided to keep moving. We went off the trail and navved our way through the clag (which lifted) on circuits on the flanks of the hill, calling the dog. We always circled back to where we'd lost her. Some guy gave us a whistle and I started blowing it (who knows why... the dog wasn't trained to the whistle, but when you're desperate, you'll do anything). I saw sheep in the distance, bunching and running like they were being herded. The dog must be there, we thought, and marched across bog and heather towards the sheep. It turned out that the sheep were bunching because I was blowing a freakin' whistle. Nae dog. She had a high viz collar on, so you would have seen her at some distance.

We started losing daylight, so there was no point in staying on the mountain. Dejected, we descended the hill. We chatted to a guy staying overnight in a van at the carpark and told him if he saw a foxy-looking brown dog, it's mine. Then we drove back to Glasgow. Once home, I called the dog's owner, got an answering machine, and left a message saying, "Uh, call me." Then I posted on the Scottish hillwalking and climbing forums, the Facebook missing dog groups, and emailed Arrochar Mountain Rescue. I included an OS grid reference for where I'd last seen the dog. I also notified the local polis. Everyone said they would keep an eye. A couple Arrochar MRT members said they'd have a wander up Ben Donich with SARDA dogs and look for her.

For a week, I heard nothing. It's an easy hill near Glasgow, so it's popular enough. Lots of people now knew about her and were keeping their eyes open. I'm thinking, the dog is dead, or someone's found her, not scanned her for a microchip, and said, that's a nice dog, I'll keep it. The owner emailed me that first night, asking what had happened to the dog. We had horses at the same yard, but she reckoned if it was a problem with the horse, the YO would have contacted her. I explained what happened. She was surprisingly magnanimous about it (and we're still friends... she now owns Hermosa's BOGOF foal). Later that week, I went back to Ben Donich, hiked up to where I'd last seen the dog, and then I rode my bike around the Old Military road that runs below the Rest and Be Thankful. If you walked straight off the hill from the grid ref of last sighting, you'd end up on it. Nae dog.

Ten days after the dog went MIA, I was in class and got a missed call from an unknown mobile number. I ducked outside to listen to the voicemail. Some guy said, "I'm with Arrochar Mountain Rescue, and I think we found your dog." I immediately called him back, and he said that one of his MRT colleagues, an outdoor ed instructor by day, was up Ben Donich with a group of kids, and a pathetic-looking dog wandered up to them. He vaguely minded seeing an email about a lost dog on that mountain. The dog looked sorry for itself, but the kids gave it a sausage roll, and it perked up. The chap on the phone descrbed the dog, and I was like, "Oh, sh1t, that's my dog!" (well, not my dog, but you know what I mean). The outdoor ed instructor and the kids shepherded her off the mountain and into their minibus, and I drove to the Blairvadach outdoor ed centre in Helensburgh to fetch her. She was weak and underweight, but she wagged her tail when she saw me. The lassie doing admin at Blairvadach, who was looking after her in her office, commented, "That's the first time she's wagged her tail since she got here." They said the kids were very pleased with themselves to have rescued a dog. So was I!

The dog was 13 at the time. She lived for another three years.

God knows what she did or where she was for ten days. If she'd been on that trail during daylight hours, someone would have seen her. When she reappeared, it was roughly at the grid reference where I'd lost her.
 
Second story involving the dog in question.

A year or so after the above story, I was on a uni mountaineering club meet at a village hall in the Highlands. My phone rang with an unknown Glasgow number. I answered, and a woman said, "Hi, this is the Glasgow police. We have your dog, Peruna." Baffled, I said, "What? That's not my dog. It's my friend's dog." WTF? The policewoman said someone had dropped the dog off at a police station, and that my name and number had shown up when they scanned her microchip.

I said, "Let me call her owner and get back to you." I did. Her owner was distraught because dog had been missing for a few hours. She'd been walking her in their usual woods near their house, and a firework (it was Nov 4th or something close to that) had gone off and spooked the dog, who'd taken off. Owner had hoped she'd find her way back home but she didn't. The microchip still had my contact info on it due to the aforementioned hillwalking debacle, and the owner had forgotten to change it back to hers. A Good Samaritan had found the dog somewhere in Rutherglen and delivered her to the polis. I put owner in touch with polis, and all was well.
 
Honestly it’s my worst nightmare.
I lost an elderly cat once, for 5 weeks. Totally out of character. I trawled the streets with fliers and searched everywhere.
She was found close to death at the exact location we walk the dogs by a local. We realised then that she must have taken shelter under the car bonnet when she got accidentally locked out that night and unbeknown to us, driven to that location when we took the dogs that first morning.
We didn’t think of looking there as it was too far for a cat to have wandered.

The heartbreaking thing was we went to that location every day with the dogs. So we were so close to where she was but had no idea.

She was close to death when she was found. She was 17 and always a chunky, healthy cat but when I rushed to collect her, I was greeted by a cat I barely recognised. Her paw was badly broken. Vets tried to save her for 24 hours, but her organs were shutting down so I had to make the decision to put her to sleep. It wasn’t the end any of us had envisioned for our much loved family cat. The only saving grace is I got closure, rather than never knowing.

It was hands down the most heartbroken I have ever felt in my life. She was one of those cats who had chosen me as her special one and we’d been joined at the hip for 17 years. I had never felt pain like it until she went missing.
 
I lost one of the cats for two weeks, but I was on a school trip for the first week. We’d just moved, so he’d gone out for the first time, unsupervised. I put out flyers and went looking as much as I could. Eventually, I got a call saying he’d been spotted but of course nobody but me could touch him. I went round the corner and the person who’d found him asked if they could help, I asked them to get a tin of anything, (tomatoes!) shook it at him and came down off a wall, yowling, skinny, filthy. He wasn’t let out again for a good while.
 
Our Keeshond was spooked by fireworks and ran off. We found him the next morning when the poor milkman came up the L-shaped path to the never used front door, only to find the dog, who went crazy and chased him, cue smashed bottles on the path and a long gone milkman. Dog was ecstatic to finally be able to confront him!

Another time, he was again spooked and handed himself into the police station who phoned us to say he’d politely come to their back door and asked to be let in. 🤣
 
Caol Ila said:
God knows what she did or where she was for ten days. If she'd been on that trail during daylight hours, someone would have seen her. When she reappeared, it was roughly at the grid reference where I'd lost her.
Click to expand...

What a story! So glad it had a happy ending. I think the only thing worse than losing your own dog is losing someone else’s 😓

Some dogs quickly go into survival mode when lost and so become hyper-vigilant, alert to perceived threats and may even become reactive or defensive towards people (even someone they know). They often hide during the day and travel at night looking for food and water.

Your description of the sheep made me smile because not many people realise sheep used to being worked by a shepherd quickly learn a whistle means dogs are coming and to flock together and move.
 
A recent story and another miracle springer spaniel 😍

A dog has been reunited with her owners after spending almost 60 days lost in mountains.
Bea, a seven-year-old Welsh springer spaniel, disappeared while on a walk above the Conwy Valley on 8 December.
Despite multiple reported sightings over a wide area, she was not found until Sunday.
Vets said she was in good health, despite spending two months outdoors in the depths of winter.

Bea's owners, Adam and Rachel Sergeant, had taken her for a walk near Llyn Crafnant, Conwy, when she went missing.
"We were in woodland and got to an open area where there were sheep," said Rachel.
"So we called the dogs to put them on a lead, but Bea didn't come - she'd just vanished."

Rachel said the weather on the day Bea went missing was "foul".
"It was raining so hard, you couldn't tell the difference between a footpath and a stream in places.
"She's never run away, so we can only guess she lost her bearings or got stuck somewhere briefly."
Adam and Rachel, from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, would spend the next 58 days searching, but they were not alone in looking for their pet.
Facebook group Lost Dogs North Wales Area was called in to help and used thermal imaging cameras, searched around lakes and rivers, sent a drone up, made posters and shared sightings in a bid to track down Bea.
"Everyone was amazing, we suddenly found ourselves with a network of support - people who weren't just going to give up," said Adam.
"It makes a huge difference to know you're not doing this by yourself - I can't thank them enough."

'Strange noise'​

Finally, in early February, a farmer spotted Bea caught in a barbed wire fence above Llanfairfechan, more than 10 miles (16km) from where she first vanished.
Huw Jones said he heard a strange yelping noise coming from part of his land.
"It was part of the site I don't go to very often, but this strange noise just kept coming," he said.
"I found Bea tangled in a mix of barbed wire and plain wire - the way she was caught up, it looked like she'd been there for four or five days."
He said it took him about half an hour to get her out in the dark by the light of his phone.
"I was worried she'd try to bite me, but she was amazing."

Vets checked Bea over and found that she had lost a lot of weight and was stained orange in places by the peat in the mountains, but was in remarkably good health.
Adam and Rachel said they wondered if Bea had survived by hunting rabbits or eating feed cakes put out for sheep.
"Our biggest worry was that she would struggle to fit back into family life, and might be aggressive towards the children, or our other dog Hatty," said Adam.
"But the minute she walked in, she was her usual self - calm and gentle, even with our youngest son, who's nearly two.
"We don't think she'll get lost again… but we've already ordered a GPS tracker for her, just in case."

www.bbc.co.uk

Dog lost in mountains for months returns home - BBC News

Bea's owners have no idea how she survived nearly 60 days outdoors in the depths of winter.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
And another heartwarming story I followed avidly at the time Jasper the border collie went missing on Scafell Pike in the Lakes. The public really got behind the story (could it have had something to do with his owner’s good looks 😂) and over £25,000 was raised for Wasdale MRT who rescued Jasper from the hill ❤️


A dog which went missing on a mountain, sparking a social media campaign by more than 6,000 people to find him, has been rescued.
Border Collie Jasper vanished when out for a walk up Scafell Pike in the Lake District with his owner Adam Nolan.
A mountain rescue team, helicopter, police and dog lovers searched for him and he was found on Thursday.
A JustGiving page set up by Mr Nolan to raise money for the rescue team had raised more than £25,000 by 19:00 GMT.
Jasper was last seen at about 14:00 on Sunday at Cam Spout Crag below Scafell Pike.
The day out was "nothing out of the blue" and Jasper was used to walking and running on the fells, his owner said.
Distraught by his disappearance, Mr Nolan, from Cleator Moor, took to social media for help to find his four-legged friend, with the #FindJasper campaign going viral.

'Heroic efforts'​

On Wednesday, after a possible sighting in Seascale, Mr Nolan vowed he would not stop searching until Jasper was "home and in front of the fire".
The local community got behind the search for Jasper and Wasdale Mountain Rescue found him in the early hours of Thursday.

Mr Nolan said on Facebook: "I'm over the moon to announce the safe return of my best friend Jasper.
"This morning Geoff Horky [from the rescue team] ascended Scafell Pike in response to the information received yesterday regarding the sighting of Jasper Near the Scafell Pike summit.
"Geoff found Jasper at 2.00am in very good condition. The Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team were then alerted and began the rescue operation. Upon hearing the news I followed the Wasdale Mountain Rescue team to Lingmell Col were I was united with Jasper.
"Naturally, there are numerous individuals who I would like to thank, but at the moment I would say a huge thank you to Geoff and the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team for their heroic efforts this morning."
Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team



A spokesman for Wasdale Mountain Rescue said: "The team are pleased to announce that we have been involved in the successful rescue of Jasper.
"The team responded and recovered Jasper back to the valley to meet Adam."

www.bbc.co.uk

Jasper the dog found after social media campaign goes viral - BBC News

A dog which went missing on a mountain, sparking a social media campaign by more than 6,000 people to find him, is rescued.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
We lost Daisy for about 15 mins when she was a puppy. The gate had been left open and she got out (unbeknownst to me). We only realised she was ‘lost’ when our farmer neighbour came down the drive with her in his truck. I was mortified.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top