# Runaway Vizsla - our experience



## daveandlaura (Aug 25, 2011)

Hi Everyone

I wanted to share our experience about our Vizsla Cassie, a 6 month old pup, who ran away earlier this week. The good news is that after 48 hours we had a very happy reunion, but what happened to us might help others in the future.

We live in Brighton, England, and my wife was walking Cassie in a reserve called Waterhall in the South Downs National Park. It's an area where there are quite a few deer (in fact we saw some when looking for Cassie), and what happened is that she must have seen a deer, bolted after it, and then got lost in the thicket / woods where the deer live.

It's not a massive wood, probably five acres, but despite getting our friends out to help we could not find her at all. Monday night was a very quiet and sad one in our household. :'(

The next day we put up posters EVERYWHERE, using doglost.co.uk. We also put a post onto the Brighton Vizsla's Facebook page. We were overwhelmed with the support. Complete strangers were out looking and putting up posters. We also had some friends with V's searching the area using some of Cassie's toys for scent.

After looking in the woods for hours we widened the search. We covered miles of the Downs that day - 14 hours in all - but still no puppy.

The next morning someone called, having seen a poster, to say they had seen her 24 hours ago near the woods. It was the sighting that made the difference.

We went back to the woods and changed our approach slightly. Instead of trying to cover ground quickly and calling her name, we basically looked under every bush we could find!

We feared the worst, there are foxes and the two nights she had been out had been cold and very wet.

The new approach worked. My wife found her tucked away, hiding, very cold, very scared, but literally crying with happiness after the reunion!

It seems what she did was very sensible. When she realised she was lost she obviously sat down and waited to be found. She ignored our calls, perhaps because she heard our friends calling as well, she might have been confused - so she hid!

What she didn't do was run away in blind panic, which is what we had feared. We found her just 150m away from where we last saw her.

So our advice to anyone that finds themselves in a similar position is to quietly search in a thorough and systematic fashion. Chances are the dog will shut down to conserve energy and be safe. 

I would also use sites like doglost (if you are in the UK), put up posters everywhere (we put up 80! - now all taken down again), use Facebook to make people aware (even join local groups with lots of members and make your Lost Dog post on there), and don't give up hope. Apparently 85% of lost dogs are reunited. 

After her 48 hours of adventure Cassie was ecstatic to be home, back in her own bed, and we felt like we had a lost child return!   

She's lost a bit of weight, but other than that she's fine.

And I've just ordered a gps collar for her....

D&L


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

I am SO GLAD you had a happy ending!! Good advice, too. Thank you for posting.


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## gunnr (Aug 14, 2009)

Great ending. A 6 month old puppy amongst foxes is a dicey proposition.

One tip to add, to aid in finding a lost dog, especially in the woods, is to take off your T-shirt, or the article of clothing closest to your skin. Lay it on the ground in hopes that as the dog tries to backtrack it's trail to you, it finds your clothes and stays in that general area.
No guarantee, but one more tip.


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## datacan (May 15, 2011)

Good to know Vs hide and don't run too far when lost. 
There is another post about a lost V dog few days ago. Hope they found it. 

http://www.vizslaforums.com/index.php/topic,2579.msg16879.html#msg16879


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

It comes back to me now that my Dad used to hunt with beagles, and sometimes the dog would get too far away and get "lost". Dad would lay his jacket down on the ground, and then return to the spot a few hours or even a day later. The beagle would be asleep on his jacket. 

If the dog could talk, he would say that he was never lost... It was the human who was lost.


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