Valerie's disappearance on South Australia's Kangaroo Island unleashed a 529-day hunt. She dodged rescue attempts and traps and had some wondering whether the sausage dog was mocking them and having the time of her life.
For 450 days, sightings of Valerie the dachshund running wild on South Australia's rugged Kangaroo Island were like sightings of the yeti -- a good story but short on proof. Then the photograph appeared.
She was just a speck in an open field but those telltale sausage dog ears were flapping jauntily as she ran and, finally, it was clear: Valerie was alive.Once Valerie was spotted on the 450th day, a trap was set up and she was spotted several times checking out the bedding and toys inside it.How a pampered, stubby-legged pooch that had never slept outside survived a bitter winter, venomous snakes and swooping eagles is a story only Valerie can tell. But how an island community pulled together to bring a little lost dog home to her doting owners is almost as valiant a tale as Valerie's epic adventure.That's the question that buzzed in Matt Johnson's mind as he tried to calm a distraught Georgia Gardner and Joshua Fishlock the day they came into his Stokes Bay cafe on Kangaroo Island searching for Valerie. She'd come back, he told them. That's what dogs do. Or she'd be spotted by someone and be returned quickly.The saga began on November 13, 2023, when the holidaying couple from Broken Hill, NSW, arrived at Stokes Bay. It was a glorious day, so they quickly set up camp and went for a swim. One-year-old Valerie came with them.They decided to go fishing but the area was rocky and they didn't want Valerie to hurt her feet. The couple set her up in a playpen with a bed, a snuffle mat and toys, and set off to the fishing spot 200 metres away.Joshua dropped the fishing gear and ran to the site but Georgia wasn't too concerned. "I thought, 'It's OK, she's so attached to me, as soon as I get there, she's just going to turn around and come to us.'" Campers told them Valerie had run under their 4WD and a man went to retrieve her. But Valerie "freaked out" and took off, with a motorist seeing her running into a property about 500 metres away.The couple took chase, searching, calling, crying, until dark. Exhausted, they went to the cafe, where Matt fed and consoled them and then helped put a post on the community Facebook page.They set off again into the night to search some more and that's when they met the property's manager, Joe Sattin. Joe had just finished a long day at work and was about to challenge the couple for trespassing. "Then I saw the tears," Joe says. Joe knew a low-bellied, short-legged mutt like Valerie would battle out there. It's hilly country, with the 80-hectare property backing onto a conservation park with patches of thick, prickly scrub and rocks "bigger than the dog".The trio piled onto Joe's all-terrain vehicle and searched. "We were calling out her name, calling and calling," Georgia says.Joe Sattin offered Valerie's owners a ride in his ATV to search the 80 hectares of scrubland for the missing dog."I was just thinking about her being out there, cold and alone, and thinking that she was trying to look for me," Georgia says. "It was just so awful."Over ensuing days, the whole island seemed to know about Valerie. "Everyone was coming to give us a hand and giving ideas," Georgia says.Devoted dachshund lover Debbie Farnden couldn't sit at home, worrying about Valerie. She decided to try to entice Valerie out with her own sausage dogs, Winnie and Ferb. "We went out ... squeaking a squeaky toy, calling out Valerie and hoping for the best," Debbie says. Each day, she went home deflated.Jared and Lisa Karran of Kangala Wildlife Rescue got technical, setting up cameras at various locations, using Valerie's bed and roast chicken to lure her.By the fifth day, Georgia and Joshua had to go home. They'd spent their days walking through scrub, and their nights going out with Joe on the ATV. Valerie could not be found. In a last-ditch effort, they left a pair of Joshua's undies on a fence post, hoping the scent would lure Valerie out -- and boarded the boat to the mainland. "We found a corner in the boat that no one else could see us in and just sat there and we cried," Georgia says. "We looked at the island and we were like, "I know our dog is on there somewhere. 'Where are you?'"As summer turned into a long, cold winter and sightings of Valerie started to peter out, few believed the little dog had survived the wilds of Kangaroo Island.Then, in February this year, a friend working on the farm of Ivan Smith and Sharon Tucker noticed a tiny black creature take off across a paddock.It was not a complete surprise to Sharon. She and Ivan had seen Valerie on their property, about 10 kilometres from where she disappeared, over the past 15 months but had never got near her. "She'd look at us, almost smile at us and mock us as if to say, 'You're not going to catch me, I'm having a great time,'" Sharon says.Sharon had previously contacted Georgia and Joshua to let them know she'd seen Valerie but there had been so many unconfirmed sightings, rumours and "we found her" pranks that the couple was uncertain of the legitimacy. Says Joshua: "We didn't want to get our hopes up and go all in because we had gone through that grieving process." But that photo was a game changer. "We cried, looking at that photo," Georgia says. "You can just tell it's her."Jared Karran from Kangala Wildlife Rescue set off to Ivan and Sharon's to determine the best place to set up a trap. The Karrans pulled together an arsenal of gear: cameras, thermal imaging equipment, drones and lots of smelly treats. On March 24, a breakthrough -- the cameras captured the first images of Valerie, sniffing around the trap. By now, the whole world was watching, too.A local newspaper article about the runaway sausage dog had been picked up by international news outlets and Valerie's owners and would-be rescuers were inundated with calls. "It was insane," Georgia says. "Never have I ever thought I was gonna be on different morning news networks, or the New York Times or the Washington Post or BBC or This Morning UK or Dutch news, German news and French news." For the Karrans, the pressure was intense. "The worst-case scenario was that she vanishes again and nobody ever knows what happened to her." But they knew Valerie had to be coaxed slowly. Lisa did a deep dive into dog behaviour and learned that once a dog is in survival mode, it won't come back to even the most doting of owners. "Lisa was very mindful of the psychological side of things and wanting to get this dog switching off of fight or flight, because so many people were saying, 'If you get that dog back, it's going to be feral,'" Jared says. But as days stretched into weeks, social media swirled with theories Jared and Lisa were deliberately stretching it out for publicity. "It went from being, you know, 'Thank you for everything you do' to 'This is taking too long, you guys are just milking this,'" Jared says.Ivan and Sharon saw the reality of the mission every day on their farm and have no doubt the welfare of the dog was front of mind. "Not only were they camped out every night and doing stuff during the day, they were actually doing a lot of research," Sharon says. Part of the strategy was reminding Valerie of her previous life, the one where she had food and toys and soft rugs to sleep on. Georgia had kept all of Valerie's things, despite the couple moving from Broken Hill to Albury since losing Valerie. She bundled them all up, threw in a sweaty T-shirt, and sent the parcel off. For weeks, the Karrans watched as a skittish Valerie tentatively entered the trap. She wouldn't sit down, wouldn't relax.Seeing that video warmed Georgia's heart. "That's our little girl. She's not some feral, wild thing ... she wants to come home. She is going to be alright."To overcome the risk of inadvertently trapping the parade of wildlife visiting the trap, Jared fashioned a remote-activated door, using the motor of a car's electric window. They watched and waited. No Valerie."Valerie was clever. She knew she was being watched," Lisa adds. After another long night, they downed tools about 8:30am on Friday, April 25, but kept the phone handy to monitor the trap via the feed from the cameras.The video of Valerie's reunion with Georgia A nervous Georgia sits on the floor as the wayward pooch, which had put on 1.8kg of muscle in her 529 days on the run, enters the room. Valerie hesitates for a second and then, tail wagging, runs to Georgia, burrowing into her, kissing her face and squirming with delight. Georgia was in tears. "It was very special to have our family back together," Georgia says. "You're alive, you're in my hands. You are real."How Valerie stayed alive is a subject of much debate, with some, including Kangaroo Island mayor Michael Pengilly, convinced someone was looking after her. But the Karrans don't believe it. They watched her in the wild on and off for six weeks, a lone dog wary of people. "She still never got the courage to actually come up to us," says Jared. "She was still running away." Plus, the only house near where Valerie was trapped was Sharon and Ivan's, and they weren't feeding her.Best bet is Valerie survived on a diet of skink, mice and roadkill and had the smarts and good luck to avoid snakes and other perils. "Her survival instinct was pretty impressive," says Ivan. Valerie is reunited with her red heeler mate Mason and feline friend Lucy while she gets acquainted with her new dachshund sibling, Dorothy.To Georgia and Joshua's delight, Valerie has settled back into domestic life surprisingly well. After a few careful sniffs, she reunited happily with Mason, their red heeler, and Lucy the cat. She's even getting along with Dorothy, the dachshund the couple bought after Valerie went missing -- not as a replacement but "a positive way for us to keep the memories alive of Valerie". When they look at Valerie now, dozing on a fluffy rug or hoeing into a bowl of roast chicken, the couple wonder about the life she had out in the wild, foraging for food and hanging out with the possums. It's a miracle, they say, but one they know would never have occurred if not for a band of Kangaroo Island locals who would not rest until the little dog lost was finally home.Photo shows A man and a woman stand in a suburban setting looking at the camera with a serious expression.
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