Nervous bulldog comes home after eight months on the run
A MISSING rescue dog is back home after surviving for eight months in the countryside.
American bulldog Izzy disappeared into remote woodland when she was spooked on a walk.
Owners Carol O’Neil and partner Gerry Clarke spent hours searching unsuccessfully with any spare time over the next eight months taken up walking miles regardless of weather.
Help was at hand from a 10-strong team of dog lovers – many of them strangers – joining the hunt when searches were announced on social media.
Shoot
“Team Izzy” scoured the countryside around Cwmcarn forest near Newport, Gwent, where she vanished.
The dedication paid off when she was spotted in the distance but hope of a reunion was foiled when she ran off again.
Eventually after five months a farmer reported that Izzy had made friends with his smaller dog and was regularly coming on to his land.
But it took another three months before they finally managed to catch her – after Carol, 55, and Gerry, 53, called in a trained marksman to use a tranquilliser when other farmers threatened to shoot Izzy to protect their livestock.
She was found four miles from her home in Wattsville, near Newport.
Carol said: “People have been amazing. I just can’t believe it.
“I’ve had people out searching with me in rain, in snow and in mud – and almost all of them I didn’t know before Izzy went missing.
“I think most of my friends thought I’d lost the plot. They were asking me why I was still looking.
“But I just knew she couldn’t stay where she was. Luckily Gerry is a taxi driver so he was able to take a lot of time off work. I work in a hospital as a nurse, so I was working 60 hours a week – and would still be out in the forest with a torch quite often searching until 1am.
“There were a few suspected sightings on the mountains but they were all from a distance – it was a bit like seeing a unicorn.
“When we got her back I bawled my eyes out. I couldn’t stop looking at her for days. I never thought I’d get this ending.
“We had to treat her almost as a wild animal – I didn’t know if she was going to be aggressive, if she was going to turn on us.
“She’s still really nervous. We haven’t been able to take her for a walk since in case she runs off again.”