Has your dog ever run off?

Anyone's dog ever run off? Did they manage to find their way back home?

Rocky ran off once. It was a few months after we got caught up in a firework display... we were walking along our usual path and a lorry was unloading something nearby somewhere, when a huge metal can or pipe fell and echoed.. sounding a bit like a firework bang!

Anyway, Rocky ran off - I called but I don't think it registered, he was still fairly young. So I ran after him, ran past a lady who knew us and she said she thought something had happened to me as she saw him shoot off down the road my heart sank I thought he would have got run over.

I finally get home which felt like an age even though it was only a few minutes away, and he's sitting there at the front door I was angry he ran off, but all I could feel was relief, let him in and gave him a big cuddle. My boy was safe

I remember the time Bandit ran off.... We were on black rock sands ( Porthmadog ). It stretches for a couple of miles, we are on one end , a jet ski is out in the bay going along the coast, Bandit decides to follow... He ran the length of the beach, got to the other end then could not see us, he has hubby in tow running along the beach shouting against the wind hoping Bandit would hear.

Bandit goes into a blind panic because he can't see us, and runs off into sand dunes. With hubby ( who a few mths earlier had had a heart attack ) Chasing after him..

Eventually found him,panicking ( both of them) in the dunes cause he could not see us.

That was one of those horrible moments , you don't want to repeat .

Maggie has ran off twice, not long after we moved to our old house. The first time there was a tiny gap under the back gate, we thought 'oh she will never get through that'.. famous last words! off she went, i think we looked for her for about 2 hours! she was just having a little run around the village, happy as can be! everywhere we went she seemed to be in the opposit direction.
Second time we think someone must have left the back gate open as we blocked the hole up, the back garden backed onto a side road and just up from it was a field so hubby went to look for her while i waited at the gate, 2 seconds later she goes sprinting past after one of the cats that used to roam around in the back alley!!
It is frightening if the run off, Maggie always has her collar with her tag on and is of course microchipped but i always worry incase someone found her and just didn't give her back

One of my dogs would run off if she picked up a sent. I would either find her where she left me or by the car.

Only one time did she come home (thank goodness) & it was the day after she had stayed with a friend for 2wks while I was on Holiday. She had never been walked from home to this area only by car.

The longest she was missing was 6hrs.

Toffee has never run off he does not let me out of sight on his walks.

Yes, Zena ran off one morning when up on top of the downs, in really, really thick fog Considering she is a dog who never leaves my side, I was just ambling back down a steep hill to the car park at the end of our walk, I turned around to call her to me thinking she had stopped a couple of feet behind me to have a sniff, and she wasn't there I couldn't see further than a few yards, my heart was racing, I went into panic mode, nobody was about, and I yelled and yelled calling her name, and within seconds, I heard the clink of her name disk, she came down a track which veered off another way to the one I was walking on, so she had obviously seen a deer and had given chase .

I think it frightened HER just as much as it did me cos she was sure glad to see me, and a couple of days later, we saw a deer alongside that same path, and although she WAS going to give chase, I told her to leave it and she instantly did, I think she remembered!

Oh lordy, I hope that never happens again. Just goes to show you can never be too complacent no matter how well trained or how obedient your dog is, and I learned a very big lesson that day, it will never happen again.

Yes Tyler did
Always thought he had perfect recall too

Hubby took him down the lake early hours in the summer a few years ago,let him off the lead and he sat next to hubby on the bench while he had a ciggie,he spotted a fox and before he had chance to whip Tyler onlead he took off chasing it

He shouted him and ended up running around the lake after him,he didn't stop,crossed a dual carriageway and over the railway line

Hubby eventually caught up with him down at the docks They were gone ages,hubby was sweating and out of breath,Tyler well he was panting a little,hubby said he didn't dare come home without Tyler
He gave hubby a good work out

It scared the life out of him so we are now extremely careful where he goes offlead.

I have to admit I had a bit of a Fenton moment with Malcolm the other day but in our defence it was one deer, not over a road and it did jump out right in front of him...

One day when I was trading and there was thunder, four houses ago, I got home to find one door broken and the other badly scratched and collie missing,,,She is terrified of thunder etc and had tried to find me.

I took wee dog out and we tracked her some way but then among sheep lost the scent.

Put her on all the web sites and local radio to no avail. Amasing the way this technology helps; a man miles off had found a collie and through sending photos we realised it was not mine

Searched everywhere....

Eleven days later, wee dog let out this strange yip I had never heard before from her, and, chiding myself I called the collie, Five minutes later she ran in.. safe and unharmed, from the wild moors behind the house. She was behind the hedge when wee dog heard her and had taken a while to find a gap.

I called family overseas and they could not believe it after all that time.

I lost the office greyhound on the local walk once. "Last spotted heading for the hills with a couple of GSDs in pursuit". She came back a day and a half later. I think she'd been hiding out in the scrap yard.

The Lodger, no. He's fallen over a hare and disappeared in pursuit etc but he'll always check back within a couple of minutes. He did once "lose me" and started tracking me back in the wrong direction which had me pounding back to the park gate waving my arms around but that's not really the same.

Reah did bless her from Patrick Twice infact.

The first time I had only known him 6 months and he decided to walk Her and Meg for me whilst I was cooking tea.....he came back a hour later without Reah..OMG the names I called him was no-ones business the bloke looked mortified....he would of been dead if it hadn't of been for a neighbour that told me she had got in the lift and out on the tenth floor instead of the nineth ...so I ran up the stairs in the block of flats were I lived to find her patiently waiting for someone to open the door so she could come down one flight.

The second time was when he took them all for a walk some years after we married, I heard a scratching at the door and in she walked....tail wagging. I rang his mobile and asked him 'have you lost something' he replied 'no I don't think so' so I suggested he did a 'doggy head count'

Needless to say after that when ever he took the dogs out without me he used to leave Reah here with me