Runaway tail... (pun intended)
Discussion
Thought I'd tell everyone a cautionary tale after our ordeal yesterday... Sorry for the long read.
The day started off perfectly fine. The sun was shining, I'd had a nice stroll to work, I was cracking on with my work. 10:30am is quickly upon us, where I get a phone call from my hysterical girlfriend saying that our lovely little Cockapoo (Baloo) has ran away from his dog walker (who he goes to day care with once a week) in Battersea Park. A pair of strangers dogs were aggressive to him after he tried to say hello, and he bolted - cue lots of silent panic from me trying to keep it calm, everything is going to be okay, we will find him etc etc.
So, quite reluctantly actually, I left work to go and help out with the search! I say reluctantly because I thought he had probably ran off and hid in a bush. The whole running off is very very unlike him to begin with, so this seemed the only logical thing he could have done in my mind. Still, Battersea Park is huge, so there was a worry of how the hell we were going to find him! Got to the park just before 11am, scanning the perimeter just in case he'd made a run for it outside of the park, whilst still getting hysterical phone calls from girlfriend.
No such luck around the perimeter. Panic level 4/10. Need Boris bike to cover more ground.
11:30am Boris bikes were hired for me and gf, off we went on separate routes to try and scope out the normal areas we go in the park. Lots and lots of no Baloo all over the park. Panic level 5.5/10.
Time for me to search the routes home while gf carries on scanning the park, paying lots of visits to the place he was last seen, just in case he returned. There are about 4 different routes we take to the park when we go, so with us living about a mile from the park, meant a s
t load of riding back and forth shouting "BALOOOOO" in the streets. Park next to our flat visited a few times on my back and forth journeys, still a whole lot of no fluffy black dog to be seen. Asking builders, local people and anyone else within the vicinity of our flat if they'd seen him, giving out my number and still nothing. Our dog walker had now banded together the Battersea Park dog walkers and they were all on the look out for Baloo. His name now being bellowed in all corners of the park. Still nothing, panic level rising quite rapidly - 7/10.
12:15pm - family were recruited to phone local vets, council, Battersea Park Police, post on local Facebook pages and register him as lost. Gf made him an instagram page, so I posted on there as he has quite a few followers. Making the post hit me quite hard as it kind of made it real, the last thing I ever thought I'd be doing was writing a description of our missing "son". This is also when I started thinking he had been stolen - no phone calls to say he'd been found or injured, and still no sign of him in the park or routes back to the flat. Panic now at 8/10.
1pm - back in the park now. Legs are no longer working very well (really should start exercising). Boris bikes returned. Met up with gf who is now beside herself with worry - she thinks we are never going to see him again, and part of me thinks the same but I couldn't say anything, as the situation needed to remain calm and hopeful. We now have a big social reach and a team of searchers in the park (and to keep the PHness going, one if which was Jeremy Clarkson's daughter, Emily, who completely selflessly came to a strangers side to help search for their missing dog, after she'd already spent most of her day marathon training). Panic level plateaued at 8/10 for now.
3:30pm - my sister had left work early, armed with missing posters to put up around the park. A tear may have been shed. Battersea Powerstation walkways searched, drops down to the Thames searched. Still nothing, but we had to keep looking. This is when my sister and gf started reading up on how to find a lost dog - one of the suggestions was to pee in the area he was last seen, but with no cups, bottles or anything to pee in, I was very reluctant on exposing myself in the middle of the park, in front of children. My sister only had a half empty bag of grated cheese, so full of shame (but willing to try anything to get my boy back) I went to the toilets to fill the, now empty, bag of cheese...
luckily this never came to fruition because I set the bag down, and it all leaked out. Not my finest.
5pm - phone batteries were dying, so I offered to walk back to the flat to charge them while the search team carried on. Gf's sisters were on their way to London (from Ashford!) to help look for him. Getting dark now and starting to lose a bit of hope - complete exhaustion didn't help with this, but in retrospect, did help panic level to not reach its maximum. Panic level 8.5/10.
5:30pm - I was outside the flat waiting for gf's sisters to get there. They arrive and I direct them to the park and tell them I'll meet them there in about an hour. I get in the lift to go upstairs, think "how amazing would it be if someone had left a note on our door saying they have Baloo? Not a chance though, they would have called us." I step out the lift onto the 5th floor, and who is curled up in a little ball on our doormat?
panic level 0/10. Relief level 10/10.
We assume he ran straight home, across busy roads, down busy high streets all the way back to our flat (just over a mile away)! He was sat outside the flat entrance, where a lovely chap from the 3rd floor thought he recognised him, brought him to his flat, gave him some food and took him up to the 5th floor with a pot of water. He tried ringing us apparently, but we heard nothing so not sure what happened there.
SO, what have I taken away from this?
- If your dog has ran away, check the floor you live on, if you live in a flat, because even if you are certain dogs can't open 2 doors and operate a lift, someone may have done it for them.
- GET A TRACKER! We are definitely now investing in one. He was probably there all day, and a tracker would have saved 6 hours of gut wrenching worry, my legs wouldn't be in pieces today and my girlfriend wouldn't have cried 3 litres of tears. And on that note - any suggestions for a tracker?
- Baloo (and probably dogs in general) is a lot smarter than I thought. He's just over 6 months old and we take multiple routes to the park, but he knew where he was going. Our very own homing pigeon.
- Baloo is very dramatic. Who runs a mile home just because they were barked at?
- Baloo will be staying on a long lead for a little while, if he gets spooked we don't want him attempting the traffic death run again - we feel very lucky that he got home without a scratch on him.
The culprit;
The day started off perfectly fine. The sun was shining, I'd had a nice stroll to work, I was cracking on with my work. 10:30am is quickly upon us, where I get a phone call from my hysterical girlfriend saying that our lovely little Cockapoo (Baloo) has ran away from his dog walker (who he goes to day care with once a week) in Battersea Park. A pair of strangers dogs were aggressive to him after he tried to say hello, and he bolted - cue lots of silent panic from me trying to keep it calm, everything is going to be okay, we will find him etc etc.
So, quite reluctantly actually, I left work to go and help out with the search! I say reluctantly because I thought he had probably ran off and hid in a bush. The whole running off is very very unlike him to begin with, so this seemed the only logical thing he could have done in my mind. Still, Battersea Park is huge, so there was a worry of how the hell we were going to find him! Got to the park just before 11am, scanning the perimeter just in case he'd made a run for it outside of the park, whilst still getting hysterical phone calls from girlfriend.
No such luck around the perimeter. Panic level 4/10. Need Boris bike to cover more ground.
11:30am Boris bikes were hired for me and gf, off we went on separate routes to try and scope out the normal areas we go in the park. Lots and lots of no Baloo all over the park. Panic level 5.5/10.
Time for me to search the routes home while gf carries on scanning the park, paying lots of visits to the place he was last seen, just in case he returned. There are about 4 different routes we take to the park when we go, so with us living about a mile from the park, meant a s
t load of riding back and forth shouting "BALOOOOO" in the streets. Park next to our flat visited a few times on my back and forth journeys, still a whole lot of no fluffy black dog to be seen. Asking builders, local people and anyone else within the vicinity of our flat if they'd seen him, giving out my number and still nothing. Our dog walker had now banded together the Battersea Park dog walkers and they were all on the look out for Baloo. His name now being bellowed in all corners of the park. Still nothing, panic level rising quite rapidly - 7/10.12:15pm - family were recruited to phone local vets, council, Battersea Park Police, post on local Facebook pages and register him as lost. Gf made him an instagram page, so I posted on there as he has quite a few followers. Making the post hit me quite hard as it kind of made it real, the last thing I ever thought I'd be doing was writing a description of our missing "son". This is also when I started thinking he had been stolen - no phone calls to say he'd been found or injured, and still no sign of him in the park or routes back to the flat. Panic now at 8/10.
1pm - back in the park now. Legs are no longer working very well (really should start exercising). Boris bikes returned. Met up with gf who is now beside herself with worry - she thinks we are never going to see him again, and part of me thinks the same but I couldn't say anything, as the situation needed to remain calm and hopeful. We now have a big social reach and a team of searchers in the park (and to keep the PHness going, one if which was Jeremy Clarkson's daughter, Emily, who completely selflessly came to a strangers side to help search for their missing dog, after she'd already spent most of her day marathon training). Panic level plateaued at 8/10 for now.
3:30pm - my sister had left work early, armed with missing posters to put up around the park. A tear may have been shed. Battersea Powerstation walkways searched, drops down to the Thames searched. Still nothing, but we had to keep looking. This is when my sister and gf started reading up on how to find a lost dog - one of the suggestions was to pee in the area he was last seen, but with no cups, bottles or anything to pee in, I was very reluctant on exposing myself in the middle of the park, in front of children. My sister only had a half empty bag of grated cheese, so full of shame (but willing to try anything to get my boy back) I went to the toilets to fill the, now empty, bag of cheese...
luckily this never came to fruition because I set the bag down, and it all leaked out. Not my finest.5pm - phone batteries were dying, so I offered to walk back to the flat to charge them while the search team carried on. Gf's sisters were on their way to London (from Ashford!) to help look for him. Getting dark now and starting to lose a bit of hope - complete exhaustion didn't help with this, but in retrospect, did help panic level to not reach its maximum. Panic level 8.5/10.
5:30pm - I was outside the flat waiting for gf's sisters to get there. They arrive and I direct them to the park and tell them I'll meet them there in about an hour. I get in the lift to go upstairs, think "how amazing would it be if someone had left a note on our door saying they have Baloo? Not a chance though, they would have called us." I step out the lift onto the 5th floor, and who is curled up in a little ball on our doormat?
panic level 0/10. Relief level 10/10.We assume he ran straight home, across busy roads, down busy high streets all the way back to our flat (just over a mile away)! He was sat outside the flat entrance, where a lovely chap from the 3rd floor thought he recognised him, brought him to his flat, gave him some food and took him up to the 5th floor with a pot of water. He tried ringing us apparently, but we heard nothing so not sure what happened there.
SO, what have I taken away from this?
- If your dog has ran away, check the floor you live on, if you live in a flat, because even if you are certain dogs can't open 2 doors and operate a lift, someone may have done it for them.
- GET A TRACKER! We are definitely now investing in one. He was probably there all day, and a tracker would have saved 6 hours of gut wrenching worry, my legs wouldn't be in pieces today and my girlfriend wouldn't have cried 3 litres of tears. And on that note - any suggestions for a tracker?
- Baloo (and probably dogs in general) is a lot smarter than I thought. He's just over 6 months old and we take multiple routes to the park, but he knew where he was going. Our very own homing pigeon.
- Baloo is very dramatic. Who runs a mile home just because they were barked at?
- Baloo will be staying on a long lead for a little while, if he gets spooked we don't want him attempting the traffic death run again - we feel very lucky that he got home without a scratch on him.
The culprit;
Glad you got Baloo back, I have been in a similar situation with all three of our dogs so know exactly how you have felt throughout the whole ordeal.
Daisy our Frenchie when she used to escape from the garden, always ended up at the front door or down the side alley to the house, however once she went missing for 24 hours; a very fraught 24 hours!
Barry our Terrier went through a phase of deciding to explore that little bit too much and getting lost, this always happened miles from home, each time he has been found by other dog walkers and we've had the phone call to say he's been found but was clearly distressed.
Daphne went missing once briefly and was found by another dog walker who directed the wife to where she was; Daphne is quite shy and won't let anyone who she doesn't know, approach her or get too near, she will just run off in the opposite direction.
Daisy our Frenchie when she used to escape from the garden, always ended up at the front door or down the side alley to the house, however once she went missing for 24 hours; a very fraught 24 hours!
Barry our Terrier went through a phase of deciding to explore that little bit too much and getting lost, this always happened miles from home, each time he has been found by other dog walkers and we've had the phone call to say he's been found but was clearly distressed.
Daphne went missing once briefly and was found by another dog walker who directed the wife to where she was; Daphne is quite shy and won't let anyone who she doesn't know, approach her or get too near, she will just run off in the opposite direction.
Edited by HTP99 on Friday 15th February 17:20
Glad Baloo is safe. We had Baggy the cat whomwe lost for a few days. Shouting his name in public was very embarrassing, but we didn’t care as we wanted him safe.
My cocker used to wander off on his own when he was younger.
You go through the whole range of emotions whilst you are out looking for them.
My cocker used to wander off on his own when he was younger.
You go through the whole range of emotions whilst you are out looking for them.
Its horrible isn't it! Glad you both got yours back too. I guess Barry and your cocker (Gary) both grew out of the wondering off?
I'm hoping the run back scared him enough that he doesn't do it again...
The guys helping us at the park told us they know a person who had a crash down the road, and her dog ran off and disappeared for 11 days! My story sounds a bit dramatic after that
6 hours is plenty long for me...
I'm hoping the run back scared him enough that he doesn't do it again...
The guys helping us at the park told us they know a person who had a crash down the road, and her dog ran off and disappeared for 11 days! My story sounds a bit dramatic after that
6 hours is plenty long for me... Gassing Station | All Creatures Great & Small | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff