A pet owner says she is 'amazed' after her dog found a missing Labrador down a hole. Susan Jones' dog Lottie discovered the missing black Labrador Gracie down the hole after a 24-hour search on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire's Peak District.
Susan, a teacher at Nottingham College, was camping with her friend Lynn Baker in Edale when they heard Gracie was missing on January 2. News of Gracie going missing spread and people as far as Manchester, Bolton and Leeds answered the call to help find her, including K9 Search and Rescue and drone support.
The search went into the night but had to be called off until the following morning. Susan, 50, said: "Myself, my friend Lynn and my dog Lottie decided to walk one way up to Kinder Scout and then across the ridge where we knew the dog went missing.
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"We walked the ridge and the weather was terrible. We stopped behind a rock for refreshments and were thinking how long can we keep going, how long can we do this.
"My dog started prowling towards some bushes and she was going really slowly, then she stuck her head in the bush and wouldn't come back. Her behaviour made me think something was wrong. I walked over, pulled the heather apart and there was a massive hole.
"She could have fallen in so I pulled her back and put her on the lead. Lynn and I were looking down this really deep shaft and she said there's something moving in there. I laid down and looked into the hole and there were two little eyes looking up at me. It was the dog."
After a nearly 24-hour search, Gracie was found. Susan and Lynn contacted her owner who went down into the hole to recover the dog. She said the recovery was 'heart-wrenching' as both Gracie and her owner were crying.
Almost three-year-old cocker collie cross Lottie is 'a very intuitive dog'. Susan added: "It was just so amazing because how awful it is to lose a dog. The feeling, she made the day. They were playing all the way back down, kisses and all sorts. It was lovely.
"We train her with games where we hide toys where she has to find them. So up Kinder we were saying 'find it, find it doggy'. She knew we were looking for something.
"It was complete elation, you just could not believe it. The drones could not find her, no people would have known that hole was there. The hole was so obscured. Unbelievable."
Lynn, 59, from Stapleford, said: "I was absolutely speechless. It was just the immense relief. The weather was absolutely atrocious. Low cloud had come over and stayed over the top of Kinder making visibility poor and horrendous wind and rain which would have made it difficult for her [Gracie] to hear us.
"We were so so lucky that Lottie either heard or smelt her and stayed her and not recalled to us." When they realised Lottie had found Gracie, Lynn added: "My heart was going ten to a dozen. I am a massive dog lover and we are always out wild camping with Lottie so just to find her, it really was a needle in a haystack."
Susan and Lynn want to raise awarness of the holes on Kinder Scout and in the Peak District. Gracie is now said to be completely fine and Susan is prepared to take Lottie up to the Peak District if another dog goes missing.
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