Dog Lost

What a week we have had, its been so eventful I will update one part here and then the rest of our week on a separate page.

After settling in well things suddenly took a strange twist. Frugal, decided to take himself on an adventure and not return. Back in the UK he had free roam of the surrounding fields, and would go off for hours, returning always before dark or when it rained, looking muddy and usually smelling of something horrid.

We knew here because he didn’t know his way around yet we couldn’t just let him roam, and so he and Benji have spent much of the time on leads or tied up, something they do not relish (and neither do we) Our dogs off the lead act (almost) civilised, on a lead however they become wild howling banshees, foam at the mouth, leap around like a fish on a hook and generally are totally uncontrollable…far too free spirited to understand the point of a lead.

So when Frugal vanished, all we could do was shout for him, and bang his dinner bowl, usually the sound of food brings the little gutso running home, but we found nothing, no rustle in the bushes, no bark, no manic puppy coming flying towards us like a bowling ball from the undergrowth… The area around here is such that looking for a dark brown dog is nearly impossible, not a needle in a haystack, more a dog on a mountain, especially one that burrows and scuttles around in the scrub, no amount of searching resulted in him being found…Four hours passed, darkness came, still nothing, the next morning, nothing, Benji was beside himself, though usually he only just tolerates the annoying over excitable pup he does like his company, and spent the next day howling almost solidly, he was our main hope for finding Frugal. Andy walked Benji around the tracks in the hope that if Frugal passed by he would pick up his scent, given that he has had two years of being able to come and go as he pleased we knew he most definitely would be trying to get his way back, just he didn’t know the area well enough, we never have needed fences and leads and locks to contain our furry family, they choose to stay and come back…however with dogs barking all over the hills behind us, and a week long Festa at the local town the distractions could prove too much for a terriers nose, taking him ever further away from us.

By the time the next nightfall came we were giving up hope, still nothing, checking wells, aquifers, the river… Portugal is not a place for a lost dog, unlike the UK where generally dogs aren’t loose and people will pick them up and take them to the nearest vet to be scanned for microchips, here dogs wander around everywhere, some are stray, some have humans, you never know, and unless they get hit by a car or end up on the motorway it’s unlikely anyone would take them to the local GNR (police). Farmers leave traps and snares and poison out for all kinds of ‘pests’ we were losing hope, and every hour he was gone heightened the chance that something bad might happen to him. People on the Internet have been so helpful, putting in calls to local vets they knew, sharing ideas on where he could be and even putting out announcements on the radio twice each day in the search for him. Our neighbours all helped keep an eye out, the son of the family next door was really keen to hear good news, still nothing.

By day three we needed to go to Penamacor an hour away to courier a tipi to the UK, so at 8am we left, looking along the lanes as always for a little pair of eyes staring from a hedge, we spent a few hours in Penamacor sorting things out before leaving the parcel with friends who were kind enough to wait in for the courier for us, we got home by 3pm feeling really a bit glum, Frugals disappearance had taken the shine off things, we couldn’t enjoy this new adventure when we were one family member down…

…what was this?! Sat there, in the shade, waiting patiently, still with the harness on that he had gone missing in looking much thinner than when he left…was Frugal! After a thorough good cuddle and a prodding all over to check nothing was injured he seemed ok, sore in the mouth from something and looking utterly traumatised, after a drink of water he just flopped onto his bed, silent, no bounce, no spark just hollow looking. Goodness knows where he’d been, how far he has traveled and what had happened to him, he could have been stuck down a hole only escaping when he lost the weight he’d lost, or caught in a fence, or tied up and broken free, or just roaming, sniffing and trying to get home. What a clever pup though to get home from goodness knows where after less than a week of being here! We kept a good close eye on him for signs of poisoning, there is a vets near where our farm is in Penamacor who runs a drop in clinic after 8pm but we were confident he would be ok. We left him in peace with Benji, (who was curled up almost on top of him by this time!) and went out to buy them both a new bed and some special dog food, Frugal was born in August, but we don’t know when, at Toms suggestion we decided that the day he returned would be his birthday, it seems totally fitting.

This morning he’s eaten breakfast and is generally back to his usual self, slightly more annoying, though not quite up to full Frugal force yet. Soon the ultra annoying Frugal pup will be back under our feet, but safe to say, we wouldn’t want him anywhere else!