This is the heartwarming moment a dad cried with joy as he was reunited with his beloved Jack Russell after it spent three days down a foxhole.
Alan Whitton, 49, panicked after Mitzi was chased away by a Basset Hound while they were walking in Knighton Wood, in Essex, last Wednesday.
The other dog walker managed to find her pooch, but Alan stayed in the woods until 6.30pm that night, desperately scouring the paths calling for Mitzi.
He eventually returned home and endured a sleepless night, before resuming his frantic search the next day, Essex Live reports.
He said: "It was hellish, I thought she was going to die.
"I broke down crying to anyone I spoke to about Mitzi, I was missing her so much."
On Friday morning, a whole two days without Mitzi, Alan was starting to face the fact that she may never be found.
However, at around 11am he received a call from a dog walker whose house backed onto the woods.
"She said her dog had been sniffing around a foxhole, and it never sniffs foxholes, so I dropped everything and went to investigate," Alan said.
After squeaking one of Mitzi's favourite toys near the entrance of the foxhole Alan heard a faint whimper.
He said: "I needed shovels, the lady who called me kindly gave me one and I started digging.
"The people started turning up to help, it was amazing."
After frantically digging, Alan eventually saw Mitzi's black eyes looking up at him.
At 1.13pm on Friday, Alan and Mitzi were reunited, with the emotional moment captured on camera by a number of bystanders who applauded as Alan pulled the dog out the hole.
"I just broke down, I was overwhelmed with joy and disbelief, I had started to lose hope," Alan said.
"It was like a Christmas miracle, all the time it felt like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.
"The prospect of not having Mitzi here at Christmas, I couldn't even contemplate."
The life therapy coach clutched the dog for around 15 minutes, shedding tears of joy at finally being reunited with his loyal pooch.
He added that Mitzi celebrated by wolfing down a Greggs vegan sausage roll.
Remarkably the dog survived its three-day ordeal with little more than a few tics, which a vet removed.
Alan is now looking into buying a GPS collar for Mitzi, to prevent the upsetting episode from happening again.
He bought Mitzi on November 19 last year after his previous dog, Tinker, died of cancer.
