bunn

I forgot to journal a couple weekends ago that Susie Shortlegs the ex-foster corgi X went missing.  Thankfully, we found her before she got run over or fell down a mineshaft.

Sylvia her new owner was having a day out in Exeter and got a friend to come in to see to Susie. He foolishly went in through the back door, which goes straight into the house without an extra gate - and Susie was straight out of there and up the lane at top speed - she ran right through the village and disappeared!

He called Sylvia ( who got into a total panic and immediately set off straight back from Exeter) then he came round to see if she had turned up at our house: she hadn't.

Luckily the role-playing party  present rose to the occasion and nobly volunteered to come and help Susie-hunt, so we all went out to search.  It was such good luck that it happened when there were other people here, as we were able to do a much more thorough search than would otherwise have been possible.    We eventually found her about a mile away in the middle of the sand-heaps from the quarry.  She had got herself into a right panic and was hiding away from the road, and I really don't think I would have found her if I'd been looking on my own.

it was a few minutes before she recognised me and she wasnt' answering to her name  either, so something had clearly given her a real shock. 

I'd  assumed that if I walked along the road calling, she would come if she could hear me, as normally her recall is very good, but this wasn't the case at all.  She was lurking a way away from the road, and I had to scale a steep bank and go and sit near her making unthreatening noises before she was finally persuaded to come creeping over: I'm sure she would not have come if she'd just heard my voice from the road, so looking further from the road is definitely a key thing to do.

I  must say I was really surprised by how far she went, and how relatively difficult it was to get her to  come to me even when I knew exactly where she was.  This is a normally very confident little dog with excellent obedience, so it really demonstrates how hard it must be with a nervous dog without much training.

Anyway, while looking we came up with various things that would have been a Good Idea to have done if this ever happened again.

1) take some info with phone numbers on, so you can ask passers by and tell them to ring a mobile number if dog is found.
2) make sure everyone looking exchanges mobile numbers
3) leave someone at base so that there is someone for people to bring dog back to rather than all haring off!
4) show everyone a photo of dog so they know what they are looking for!
5) take a map or something so that you can show people where 'base' is to take dog back to if they find her, and are not locals.