Winston…the Wild Dog of Walbottle

Paddy Driscoll

When I got the phone call to tell me that Winston had escaped and had run off it was like being kicked in the stomach. I felt physically sick. Winston and his brother Dylan had been in their new home for just 6 days and at lunchtime on Saturday November 5^th they had managed to escape. Non Brits might not appreciate the significance of that date. It was Guy Fawkes day, when, to celebrate the foiling of a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, everyone sets off fireworks. If it happens to fall on a Saturday, as it did that year, it can be like world war three going off in your backyard. The very worst day of the year for any animal to be out in the wide world, let alone a scared little house dog. Dylan was caught immediately, but Winston was less fortunate. He ran scared. He wasn’t caught for 25 days.

Winston and Dylan are 2 German brothers that had come into German Spitz Welfare and Rescue some months before. They had been badly neglected, were very scared, overweight and their teeth were rotten. They started off with rescue stalwart Eddie Andrew, who got them through the worst. They came to me after a while to progress further the work she had done to help them get over their fears of being approached, handled and picked up, so they could be permanently rehomed. They had a few other problems like poor housetraining, but the fearfulness was the most urgent to address.

Over the next few weeks, both gradually came around, using clickers and food. Fortunately they were, and are, very greedy. Their confidence was improving. Both could be stroked and handled to some extent, and Winston was happy to be picked up and groomed. Dylan less so, but he endured and was getting better all the time. Winston coped better with everything. He seemed fazed at first by walks on the local common, but the surprise wore off very quickly and he very quickly learned to enjoy them. The two seemed quite dependent on each other, so it was decided they shouldn’t be split up for rehoming if possible. A home was found and in due course off they went.

But in one brief moment everything changed. They managed to escape. On the very worst day of the year, Guy Fawkes Day. Winston was out and on the run in a strange town, on his own. He was 6 years old. He had never needed to cope with traffic as far as we knew. He didn’t like rain. He hadn’t eaten well over the previous few days as he hadn’t found the change of home easy. He didn’t have many teeth. And he was scared.

First sightings, after the area was flooded with leaflets, were reported over the next few days. He was seen trying to cross a busy road but change his mind and run away from the traffic. He eventually did cross that road and ended up in some fields a couple of miles from where he escaped. Over the next 3 weeks he covered an area of woods and fields surrounded by houses and a major dual carriageway ‘A’ road. After early attempts on his part to go towards people with dogs, he was chased off by the dogs on a number of occasions. People who saw him (and probably the dogs) didn’t always realise he was a dog at first. He was chased off the dual carriageway by police and was reportedly seen going under, and coming out the other side of, an articulated lorry. He was seen on numerous occasions running along local roads. He was nearly always running, never pottering about or looking relaxed. I stopped listening to weather forecasts when they started to report temperatures falling 4 below zero. Thick freezing fog and intermittent rain all had my heart sinking as I wondered if he could survive yet another night. Foxes and hawks were local predators that would be more than happy to finish off a tiny dog who couldn’t easily fight back! But every time something potentially fatal happened, he would pop up again, and we would have more sightings reported.

He seemed to be panicking less as time went on and gaining some confidence in his new existence. He seemed to be more calculated in the way he avoided capture. One abortive attempt to grab him had him trying to bite the person, who let him go. Being so small he could squeeze through very tiny spaces so evading capture was pretty easy for him.

He was obviously getting food somehow. The fact that he was still alive and kicking after 3 weeks was proof enough. There were plenty of allotments where fruit and veg could be found. As the more ‘proactive’ food stealer of the brothers, Winston had shown his metal in food acquisition in my house. He was adept at getting bins over and climbing on furniture to steal fruit from the fruit bowl! Those skills were being put to good use now. At one point he was trapped in a garden for long enough to be fed a large bowl of dog food while helpers rushed at break neck speed to get there before he ran off again. Humane cat traps had been obtained and placed, but as he was moving about in such a large area, and some potentially unsafe for (lone female) helpers to deal with, it was difficult to use them effectively.

Similar stories of dogs that have been loose, and been scared, have shown that the dog is unlikely to respond to an owner the way a Disney film would have them behave. Many just don’t seem to want to risk capture even if their owner appears and calls them. In Winston’s case, it was even more difficult. He had no long term bond with an owner. His willingness to be approached and handled at home, so tenuously established over the previous few months just wasn’t strong enough to overcome his fears. We walked Dylan, and other dogs that he knew, around the area and tried to use them as a lure to tempt him out, but if he saw them, he chose not to appear. Also he was 4 hours drive away from me so I couldn’t spend the time I wanted to find him to.

Then on Tuesday 29^th November I got a call. ‘”We’ve got him!” I hardly dared believe it. Mandie’s voice on the other end of the line was so emotional it was barely recognisable as hers. I was shaking and speechless. Three searchers had managed to corner him in a field by quietly and deliberately surrounding him after they had just been in the right place at the right time. One was able to grab him as he sank into the ground. This time his captor didn’t let go as he tried to bite!

Very thin, very smelly, but declared healthy by a vet, Winston came home to me and Dylan. Dylan had come back to me the day after the escape as he wasn’t coping on his own. Our reunion would have made a lousy Disney film ending. Winston was in state of shock. When he first saw me he didn’t acknowledge my existence and looked completely catatonic. His eyes had a dead and haunted look to them as he lay curled up at the back of the cage. In the car on the way home I stopped to check him out. I could see in the gloom his tail give a little half hearted wag and I felt his tongue licking my hand. He was beginning to realise he was in familiar territory now in ‘own’ bed and in his ‘own’ car.  He spent that first night home on my bed, curled up next to my pillow. Still smelly, but safe. More like a Disney ending I think!

Footnote: The frequent trips between my home in Lincoln and Newcastle, where he went missing, meant my life was put on hold for 3 weeks. Some kind people put their hands in their pockets and gave me and the other searchers some much appreciated financial help. Support, some from obedience friends as well as people in other breeds, was wonderful. Once I totted up the cost to me for looking for him I would say he was the most expensive dog I have ever owned, champions included!

Thanks to everyone who helped, but it has to be said that without GS owner and Club member Mandie Heslop I doubt Winston would have made it. She searched miles on foot most days. She spoke to all the locals she met and spread the word without flagging over those 3 weeks. She drove many miles to and from her home some miles away. Many times she was the only person out there looking. Yet she had not only never met Winston, until the day he was caught she hadn’t even set eyes on him. Her dedication to finding him deserves a medal! Well done Mazza!