A Romanian rescue dog who went missing in the Gower has retraced her steps and been found 100 feet from where she went missing.
Vanessa St John, 53, was left in a blind panic after her rescue dog Elsa was spooked and ran away while on a walk in the Gower last week.
Elsa, an Alsatian and Greyhound crossbreed, was still fairly new to the family; she had been brought over from Romania to Many Tears Animal Rescue, near Llanelli, in August as a six-month-old puppy, and Vanessa and husband had adopted her in September.
Read more: Missing dog reunited with owners after eight long years
Despite being “feral” on arrival, she was receptive and easy to train, giving Vanessa the confidence to walk her off lead.
Then one Sunday, she was spooked, and fled.
Vanessa explained: “One minute she was about 10 feet behind me, then the next minute, she turned and bolted.
“She went up to the trees, and of course each tree looks much the same as the other when you are in the woods.
“I think she got lost and couldn’t find her way back, and the more she panicked the more she got lost and it became a vicious cycle.”
Vanessa, who lives in Gorseinon, explained her neighbour put her in touch with a coordinator and scanner for Missing Dogs Team Wales called Nicola Round - a group of volunteers who are experts in tracing and finding lost dogs.
Nicola advised the best thing Vanessa could do was waft her scent around the place Elsa ran off, because most dogs eventually retrace their steps to where they lost their owner.
Vanessa said: “So that’s what I did first thing every morning, just as it was getting light, at about seven o’clock I’d go down to the woods and drag unwashed clothing, T-shirts and trousers and a coat along the ground, so that it would leave a scent.”
Thankfully the scent tracing worked, as over the next few days Vanessa would receive up to 20 calls from the public with sightings of Elsa.
The first reported seeing Elsa right on the edge of a cliff at Three Cliffs Bay, and as per advice, each person reported the sightings straight to Nicola and Vanessa rather than attempting to approach and catch her.
Being a Romanian rescue dog, Elsa would have likely fled - which is particularly dangerous when faced with a sharp drop to the sea off a cliff’s edge.
However, each time Vanessa arrived at the sighting to call Elsa, she had disappeared.
A few days in, Nicola decided to cook sausages on a BBQ around the area Elsa had fled.
The women left sausages in the undergrowth overnight and the next morning, a member of the public reported seeing Elsa taking the sausages, and two or three other people spotted her that day.
Filled with hope that the scent tracing was working, Nicola and Vanessa cooked another BBQ and put up security cameras.
There was no trace all night, but three hours into Vanessa’s regular dragging of clothes around the area, she received a call from the local farmer to say Elsa was in his field.
Vanessa rushed up in her car to find Elsa standing in the middle of the field, around 30 feet away.
She looked at Vanessa, turned around and ran back through the field and through the trees.
Then a member from the Missing Dogs Team Wales, John, rang Vanessa to say she was waiting by her bed in the crate.
Vanessa drove back down to the area and found her looking soggy and forlorn.
Vanessa said: “I went really, really quietly and crouched right down.
“I had cheese because she loves cheese, and I crawled for about 20 feet with my hands and then she wagged her tail, and I knew at that point it had worked and then she literally jumped into my arms.
“I was sobbing, John was sobbing, I think even John’s Irish wolfhound was sobbing.”
Vanessa took Elsa home, where she ate a large meal, had a big drink of water, and passed out in front of the wood burner for the entire night.
She was quick to commend the incredible efforts from Missing Dogs Team Wales, who are all volunteers and self funded.
She said: “I just really want to give a heartfelt thank you to Nicola and her team of volunteers who were so desperate to find her, as well as all the people who rang in with sightings.
“I’m a Gower girl and grew up here and the community spirit is phenomenal.”
But there was an extra sentimental reason why Elsa’s return meant so much to Vanessa.
She said: “My husband is going through chemotherapy at the moment, and Elsa is just his whole world so I wanted more than anything to get her back for him.
“It meant absolutely everything to him.”
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