How do you catch a terrified dog?

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BWa

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A Gordon setter ran through our farm today, I could get quite close but not close enough to catch as it was clearly very scared. As it is a quite unique breed I was able to track down its owner with one phone call and I have spent the afternoon trying to track it down with them. Lots of people have seen it but no one can get near it, it only arrived to its new owners on Sat and doesn't really know home yet and it's very nervy and by the very nature of the breed it can cover a lot of miles, very quickly.
Any suggestions??!!
 
Food? Encourage him into a smaller place using food. (a stable?) close doors and leave to settle? before walking backwards towards him. (no eye contact). Slip lead to catch.
Other dog(s)? Does the GS want to get close to any other dog? Maybe using a another dog as bait to get him indoors/into a stable?
Failing all that, or anything remotely like that, I've seen on american rescue programs they use a cargo net to trap. Need a few people for it though. (works with wild deer or such like stuck in the wrong places?)
 
Fools Motto said:
Food? Encourage him into a smaller place using food. (a stable?) close doors and leave to settle? before walking backwards towards him. (no eye contact). Slip lead to catch.
Other dog(s)? Does the GS want to get close to any other dog? Maybe using a another dog as bait to get him indoors/into a stable?
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if the dog is not aggressive then just sitting in the corner of the smaller enclosed space with a book and a lot of tasty food and plenty of patience, have a slip lead but don't put it on as soon as the dog comes over, no eye contact no speaking, allow the dog to come and go without trying to instigate contact, no-one watching so no talking or distractions try and make it as calm as possible-poor dog must be so scared
 
Thanks guys but this dog is running across open arable land! I'm not overly confident about a happy ending with this. I will be back out at first light but at least today we had an idea where it was from the sightings, who knows where it might be by morning :(
 
Not a good time of year to lose a dog. Hopefully, you have no lambing flocks locally.

You may be sure the dog has even less wish to be lost than the owner had to lose it.

Usually, a lost dog will back track to where it last had contact with the owner (the car?). Sometimes one of my young dogs would take off after a hare the first time they saw one. I used to spend hours hunting for them until I learnt to hang my coat on a fence post and go home for tea. I'd come out an hour or so later and the dog would be curled up by the coat. Leaving the car where it was parked when the dog was lost with the door open might be even better.

Obviously, run another dog. Preferably one it knows. Or better still (assuming its male) a bitch is season.

If the dog will come within 50 yards, sit down quietly after leaving your coat/hat/or similar item at a distance so the dog can check out the scent. I once did this with a strange dog who kept away for about two hours, then suddenly decided I was OK and came right up, tail wagging.

As has been said, let the dog follow you into a barn or shed, double back and shut the door.

Lying flat down on the ground will sometimes bring a nervous dog close. Then, softly-softly.

Doped food?
 
Thank you I like the car idea. We are in the middle if lambing at the moment! That's what made me go after it in the first place before I twigged who it might belong to. Luckily we are mostly arable round here but i am well aware of the outcome if it does chase sheep. However it was really just running in blind panic today.
 
How old and where did it come from originally. Dogs have been known to travel hundreds of miles to get home despite traveling to where they were lost by car. It may still think home is the people that sold it.

If you do catch up with it. Don't chase. Put food down, doped if you can but any dog friendly food and retreat a bit to let it eat. Only little bits so it stays hungry and retreat less each time. Then lay down in your back and have the food on your chest. By the time it feels safe enough to come to you for food, you should be able to stroke it and eventually pop a lead on. Slowly slowly, catch monkey :)
 
Contact DogLost as they will have people in the area who will help to find the dog, and be able to provide a trap, once the dog has established n area it is running round...
 
Contact the old owner, see if you can get something from them such as a jumper, leave it on the yard and see if that will entice the dog back, if it has just arrived with a new owner it probably won't know them to come back to.
 
Might sound crazy but friend is a police officer and when a dog was running across a main road between traffic, terrified would get so close to some and run off tail between the legs etc. He simply got out of his car and opened the boot of it, whistled and shouted come on to the dog. It jumped into the boot, quickly shut the door and kept it there till dog warden arrived. Might not work but worth a try ?

edt- mind you that would only work if you found it :(
 
Thanks everyone. It was last seen at 10pm last night and we have all be out this morning but not seen her anywhere. Who knows where she got to in the night. Her owners have always taken on setters from a friend who breeds and trains them for field trials and they take on the retire ones or ones that don't make the grade and apparently this one had been 'shot over' so had become very nervous, I got within 10 ft of her yesterday but she then she set off in that stride that covers so much ground. She covered our 1000 acre farm in about 20 minutes! However last nights sighting wasn't that far away so hopefully she is still in the area. Thanks again folks.
 
Just an update, she is still on the run in the same area and she has avoided the main road several times but everyone who has seen her said she looks very tired so now the concern is that she is going to literally going to run herself to death!
 
Poor thing, I'm so glad you are doing your best to find her :) In my limited experience (and someone will no doubt be along to correct me) Gordon Setters are nervy dogs at the best of times, she must be terrified :(
 
If you could get an old smelly coat or similar from the owner, that might help reassure her.

Apart from the dangers of traffic, she will be fine. I once lost an English pointer on a Speyside moor for over a week in March. There was snow on the ground and I had given her up for good. But she reappeared looking just as fit as if she had been lost the day before. Working dogs are tough.

Sorry, but I don't think the RSPCA would have a clue and will probably make things worse!
 
Hope they manage to get her soon. I have to say if I were the old owners I would do everything I could to help catch her, if they have a kennel full of dogs they surely have someone who can help out looking after them in an emergency such as this.
 
We once lost a hound that we had introduced to the pack from another kennel. The old huntsman made a long journey across country to help with the search. When he got out of the car at the kennels, he put his horn to his lips and blew. Within ten seconds the errant hound came running around the corner of the yard! Talk about feeling foolish!

The dog will be looking for a familiar scent. They have fantastic noses and will be searching the wind. The trouble is they can cover long distances very quickly. Been there, done that. If she won't come to hand, the best bet is if she will follow someone into a shed and they can double back and close the door. Be careful, a nervous dog will bite. It might also come to a whistle, but it needs to be a similar whistle and the same call the owner uses. That's assuming it doesn't flee in the opposite direction!
 
As would I. I don't know the previous owners and maybe shouldn't be so quick to judge but as they got rid of this dog as it would no longer work for them, I'm guessing it isn't a priority to them. It is most definitely a working dog, not a pet and please don't judge me on that statement as we have both working dogs and pets and I'm not saying I would not even look for one of our collies if they ran away but I'm quite sure my FiL wouldn't, it's just a different attitude towards them.
Anyway they have spoke to the old owner who have said that she is a creature of habit and as she has been seen in one area the most that's where we will focus in today. Fingers crossed.
 
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Have the new owners managed to get hold of traps? They might be able to borrow one from the RSPCA, or perhaps a local who live traps foxes who would lend a trap - perhaps worth asking about on the off-chance?
 
bearTessy said:
Might sound crazy but friend is a police officer and when a dog was running across a main road between traffic, terrified would get so close to some and run off tail between the legs etc. He simply got out of his car and opened the boot of it, whistled and shouted come on to the dog. It jumped into the boot, quickly shut the door and kept it there till dog warden arrived. Might not work but worth a try ?

edt- mind you that would only work if you found it :(
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I like this idea - when I had a loose greyhound on the hard shoulder of the M6 (don't ask...) I did just this and it worked :) Thank goodness.....
 
Well folks, would you believe we got it!
It returned to our farm this afternoon and we all ran round the place for a while and then eventually decided we weren't going to get near it so backed off and watched it curl and fall asleep in the middle of the pea field.
So how did we get it back you ask?!
Well after all I had said and unbeknown to us at the time its previous owners were driving over from Cumbria with her best doggy friend. They walked straight up to her, put her on a lead and bought her back to her new owners! Once she was on a lead she was a different dog; happy, pleased to see everyone, friendly!
New owners have another Setter arriving on Monday who is also
Doggy friends with her, so hopefully with company she will settle.
So my faith in doggy people is restored. It's has all been a weird twist of fate as the new owners are my parent's best friends (my Dad came over from West Yorkshire to help yesterday) and why this all started and finished where I live it just bizarre, but they have done me many doggy favours, including looking after mine for 10 days when I had my baby, so I think I have finally repayed them!
Thanks for all your ideas and general interest folks.
 
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I'm so glad to hear that it all ended well. Lovely to hear that her previous owner came, and could help with catching the dog.
 
I must also mention my lovely little collie who had a wonderful morning with my Dad, covering many miles, looking in every ditch and under every bush and being very well behaved. She hates dogs she doesn't know but we figured she would be more likely to sense a dog hiding somewhere than us. She got to watch her favourite programme (You'ved been framed, I kid you not) as a reward.
 
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