Monday, March 20, 2017

A Border Terrier? To Ground??



This is about a Border Terrier owner who was amazed that a free-running and unattended pair of dogs might go to ground.

Who ever heard of a working border terriers?? Almost no one!

From the Manchester Evening News:

A missing dog that sparked a three-day search and £500 reward managed to find her way home – then led owners to her pal who was trapped down a hole.

Terriers Kolo and Flo disappeared from a field near their home at Reddish Vale Farm on Wednesday.


Owner Simon Dillon, who runs the farm, said at first he thought the pair had wandered off, but as the day went there was still no sign and they began to worry.

Dozens of people joined a search for the animals, with more than 10,000 people sharing the appeal on Facebook.

But then, on Saturday morning, Simon, 58, was stunned to see Kolo casually walking up the lane into the yard they were working in.

She was skinny and dehydrated, and covered in dirt, so they took her to a vet to be checked over.

Later that day, after being given some fluids and the OK by the vet, Simon and son Ben, 30, returned with Kolo to the field she and Flo went missing in.

“At that point anything was worth a try,” said Simon.

“We thought she may be able to show us where they went and help us find Flo.

“Off she wandered, we followed her for about a quarter of a mile then we came to this fox hole.

“Kolo started barking, it was about 12 inches across and she was trying to get back down it, so much so we had to restrain her.

“There were no noises coming from inside, but Kolo was adamant there was something down there so we started digging.

“We dug with our spades for about two hours to around six feet down, then we saw Flo in the hole, stuck behind a rock that had fallen and trapped her.

“The poor thing was very worse for wear – her paws were bleeding from where she had been trying to escape.”

Simon says when him and Ben arrived back at the yard with the dogs, all of the girls burst into tears.

He added: “I don’t think we ever would’ve found her without Kolo. We’d have been wondering those fields forever.
There are, of course, a few working border terriers about, but this is a Top Ten breed in the U.K, and you have to look hard to find one that actually works in season.

It says quite a lot that most of the top selling book on Border Terriers say nothing about work, and do not have a single picture of a dog in the field wearing a locator collars, at a dig, or with a fresh-dug fox. We have more pictures of the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch than we do of honest working Border Terriers!

1 comment:

Noel said...

My Border was bought on a discount as a runt, and he now weighs 19 pounds - and no fat. I live in the land of fat Northern woodchucks, and it still isn't safe to let him follow them into a hole.