January 10th, 2022

On New Year’s Day we had the worst two days of our lives, followed by the most emotional one hour of our lives. Our 18-month-old red Cockapoo, Reggie, was attacked by another dog and slipped his collar, and ran off chased by the other dog. This was just down the road from where we live and eventually my wife Victoria made her way home and tearfully told me what had happened. Reggie had now been missing for 30 minutes.

It was unusually warm for early January, and we split up and started to search the area where he had last been seen asking everyone we saw to keep an eye open and to call us if there was a sighting. This was on the Castle Hill Estate in Filleigh, Devon. No sightings at all for the first few hours. I decided to stay up high, you might be able to see something in the distance.

In late afternoon, I did see something in a field by a hedge and I stood there watching, it was a long way away, it could be anything, then it moved back into the hedge. A fox perhaps, can’t be a badger it’s not dark, I was too far away even to determine a colour, was it brownish?

After a phone call, Victoria arrived so I could point out where I had seen something, and we approached from different sides of the field. A half hour later, I saw an animal get up on its hind feet at a cattle trough, at least it was brownish, orange perhaps, might be a fox, it could be Reggie, but this was still 150 meters away, and I was in the wrong field with no chance of easily getting into the right one. Five minutes later Victoria saw something, just for a few seconds before it disappeared over the brow of the hill, a 70% chance it was Reggie, she said.

We didn’t have another sighting, but by then Olivia, our eldest daughter had returned home and enlisted the help of Facebook, and shortly afterwards we heard that a dog had been seen running very fast down the road, but this was 2km away from where we thought we had seen him. By now it was dusk, there had been other sightings, it was definitely a dog, but it was running too fast, and it was too dark for people to say what colour it was.

We concluded that we wouldn’t find him tonight, but in the early evening we did go out with our torches, what was the point of sitting at home. 

At 10 o’clock a local farmer called to say that they had heard barking across their fields. More calling and searching, but no luck. The farmer was out on his quad bike trying to see whether he could get a positive sighting, he probably did that until after midnight. Our other daughter Polly arrived home from London later, and we were all up early to restart the search.

We heard nothing the following day, the Sunday. At first light some good friends were with us to help search, you probably know one of them, Martin Williams of IBM who works in Maximo Enablement, he happens to live half hours’ drive from us. The girl’s old tennis coach (and mine), Georgina, also appeared, she had seen the Facebook alert, we hadn’t seen her for 10 years. Lots of others too joined us for the search, friends, neighbours and strangers, farmers and game keepers were all keeping an eye out. Some locals spent the best part of the day sending up a drone at various locations and searching woods further away. Unbeknown to us at the time, some had gone searching in the early hours, Danny with his amazing infrared binoculars, and Gordon whose guns dogs had started barking in the middle of the night. 

We entered Sunday evening now fearing the worse, Reggie was heading for his second night out, then the phone rang, another local farmer, just across the valley from us, said that they could clearly hear barking in a local copse. This must be it, but no, after another couple of hours we had seen nothing and heard nothing. “He’ll be all right”, Danny said, handing me the night vision binoculars. “See those lights in the tree over there, they’re pheasants roosting, his probably had his tea already and hunkered down for the night”. When I checked the bottom of our field just before going to bed, I could see the farmer out on his quad bike still checking, trying to get a sighting.

On the Monday morning (thankfully a public holiday) we were joined by Isabel and her Golden Labrador Findlay, who was trained in tracking other dogs. Isabel had found us through Facebook and had kindly offered her services. As soon as Findlay was given Reggie’s collar and was give the command “Go find”, he did a pirouette on the spot and headed out of our courtyard. I certainly got the impression Findlay was saying to himself, “I’ve already smelt this”.

According to Victoria, Findlay headed down the church driveway, and without hesitation crossed the road and turned right, at that point Victoria was thinking he’s gone the wrong way. Findlay’s technique is to sniff the air, in the right conditions it could last several days, and it was the right conditions. Findlay determined the route to take; up Long Walk drive he suddenly halted, right at the point where Victoria had walked Reggie on New Year’s Day morning. Findlay just turned around, and in the next 20 minutes had passed the cottage where the other dog had attacked Reggie, zigzagged down the road where Reggie had been running dodging the cars, turned left towards Castle Hill, and at the point where Victoria had lost sight he turned left again, at the point where he could have gone straight on or right. Findlay was following the path we thought Reggie had taken assuming our sightings and the barking over the previous two nights had been him.

Badger, Olivia’s black Cockapoo and not even a year old, was now also on the scent, Isabel had suggested that Badger should also have a smell of Reggie’s collar. Now, at times, Findlay was allowing Badger to lead, Badger can sniff scent both in the air and on the ground. They followed the cow track down towards Spa Wood which borders our fields, and at the bottom turned right into Spa Wood, would you believe it, this is less than 100 metres from the bottom of our field, if he turned left then a couple of seconds later, he might have recognised where he was, but he didn’t, he turned right instead.

The scent was taking them all towards where Victoria and I had our sightings, but before they could get there, Findlay was distracted by a barking dog, out for a walk, and they had to abandon that trail. They went to where there had been other sightings and picked up the trail there.

Polly and I had made separate searches in the early morning, and following advice had then got together and were speaking to a few other farmers or landowners further away. They all, without exception, took time out and started searching their land and hedgerows.

Isabel had said, don’t shout Reggie’s name, just call gently. He won’t be far away they have a natural sense of where they are, they work in loops to find their way home. Check the hedgerows she said, that is where lost dogs will be found. I guess they wouldn’t be having a sleep in the middle of a field. So, Polly dropped me off and I made my way meticulously around the hedges of the fields towards the areas we thought we had seen Reggie.

There was a particular line of hedges I wanted to check. It was a windy day and twice I had to stop and check a faint noise, was it a bark, I walked closer, and heard it again. It can’t be a dog up in a tree. It was two boughs rubbing together in the wind.

When I approached the line of hedges I had wanted to check, I made it all the way up and down again, calling Reggie, Reggie, there was only the sound of the stream hidden by the trees and brambles bordering a small ravine. Now I had to cross the stream to continue my hedge searching, and I was going to get my feet wet. Was that a bark? I waited, nothing more for 45 seconds. Again, I think that was a bark, or was it the trees? I started making my way back up the ravine calling Reggie, Reggie, and then I heard a definite bark.

You couldn’t see into the ravine, the stream was probably only 15 feet down at most, all you could see was a mass of undergrowth. I kept walking up, calling all the time, and near the top I found an opening where I could see the stream below. But if it was Reggie, had he been following me, was he trapped down there? Then, from the left, he appeared, I’ve seen Reggie, clever boy had followed me along the bank on the far side.

Without hesitation Reggie jumped into the stream and bounced up my side of the ravine, and I could touch him the other side of the wire fencing. I couldn’t get him over the fence because of the bushes and brambles, but I could open 3 or 4 inches below the bottom of the wire fence, and head then shoulders, front legs and then the rest of him, he was slid through the grass under the fence, and we were reunited.

That was the start of the most emotional one hour of my life. I wouldn’t let go of Reggie, I couldn’t find him and then lose him again, fortunately Polly had given me a rope lead and some treats, and I fastened a makeshift collar from the rope. Now I could call Victoria and Olivia. I’ve found him, I said. At first, they couldn’t make out whether I had found him alive or dead, I guess the emotions were not making me coherent. Ten minutes later as we walked towards each other across the fields they could see Reggie and then in true movie style as we all ran towards each other, the family (including Badger) were reunited, and with Polly a short time later.

During the following week I felt I wanted to tell this story, I’m not on Facebook or any other social media apart from LinkedIn, and well, that’s for business, I’m a digital nobody. So, I am pleased to be telling you now, perhaps only an audience of one, but I have it on tape, and I have it in word. You just cannot believe how grateful we all are to everyone that helped look for Reggie, and how much time everyone spent, and we don’t know everyone that was out looking, because since, we have heard of others who were.

It is unbelievable kindness that has been shown. We’ve heard that unknown children had seen the Facebook alert which had been shared by many and had pestered their parents to take them out looking for Reggie. For complete strangers, to give up their morning, or afternoon, on a public holiday as well. We are, just so incredibly grateful to everyone. 

Isabel had never got to see Reggie, when she realised he had been found she just made her way home with Findlay. I must give her and Findlay a special mention, she reignited our hope when we met her in the morning and kept our spirits going during that third day. They do this together, because they care about dogs and other people, it is humbling. Since then, Reggie and Findlay have met up.

We needed to return to our home in Twickenham that evening, Victoria was going back to work at her school, and Olivia needed to go back to work as well. Reggie and Badger slept the whole way. Normally, during term time, Reggie goes to Doggy Day Care a couple of times a week, but we felt we needed to cancel this for a few weeks. It was due to turn cold and I was worried about the outside taps that needed insulating, a job I had been putting off for a few weeks. I returned to Devon with Reggie on Wednesday morning and Victoria came down by train on Friday.

During those few days we kept to our garden or our fields. Reggie is particularly interested in the birds that are still around, especially the pheasant cries, there is a residual wild side. But he is staying close, and the walks at dawn and dusk are on the lead. He is also spending more time than usual asleep.

At the weekend Reggie received a brown bear present from his doggie friend Cadbury, and that was the name I gave the bear. It didn’t take long for Cadbury to go missing and I eventually found him intact and buried among some cushions on one of the living room sofas.

Reggie is now the owner of an Apple AirTag and a Vodafone Curve GPS Tracker for longer walks in territory that he would not know, we’re taking no chances.

I did get to play golf on Sunday, and I went to pick up a new hybrid that I had tested in September which had now arrived, yes, I had to wait 4 months. On the driving range, no problem, long and mainly straight, not so easy on the course, but I’ll get a hang of it.

I made some pistachio ice cream as we have some people coming for dinner next weekend, and we managed to plant the remaining bulbs, from about 3,000 that we had bought for the new flowerbed by the greenhouse and numerous pots, 44 to be precise. So, after the unwanted adventures at the beginning of the week, life was returning to normal, hopefully he’ll not go missing again.