Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have had a pet go missing knows that it’s truly one of the worst feelings in the world. Not knowing where your pooch is – or even if they’re alive and well – has to be one of the most agonizing feelings. So when a dog from Wiltshire, UK went missing early this month, his poor family feared the worst.
After two weeks of frantic searching, they assumed that he must have become stuck down a rabbit hole and died. But amazingly, this story has a happy ending, as the pooch reappeared at the family’s home as the family was beginning to mourn for the loss of him.
But what had he been doing for all that time?
Simba the Cavapoo was going for a walk with his family near Marlborough when he seemingly vanished into thin air.
Mr. Arnott told BBC News that they had been walking near their home in Aldbourne in a field with “hundreds and hundreds of rabbit holes,” and the tiny dog was with them “one second and gone the next”.
The family instantly began to search the rabbit holes, but there were so many that this was going to be a big job. But like any pet owner, you’d do anything to get your beloved pet back, so the family searched frantically day in, day out. It was a long, time-consuming job, and the more the family searched with no sign of Simba, the less faith they began to have about finding him again.
“There are so many rabbit holes, we didn’t know which hole he could have gone in,” Mr Arnott said. “We looked in every hole, it was torture not knowing exactly which hole he must have fallen down.”
As time went by, the family became more desperate.
Despite having help from the fire service, underground cameras, a bloodhound, and even a psychic, Simba still remained out of sight. It was Mr. Arnott’s wife, Kathy, who suggested the psychic, and the woman gave details of a very specific location where the pooch was trapped.
“She originally sent us on a bit of a wild goose chase but eventually, she said he’s stuck down a hole within 120 steps of the front door,” Mr Arnott said.
But still, even after cameras were put down every hole, there was still no sign of Simba.
“We’d given up, he was only a baby, we really didn’t think he’d be able to survive down a hole for so long,” Mr Arnott said. “On Monday, I sealed up all the holes dug in the search because they were unsafe, thinking I was burying our little dog.”
But then a miracle happened.
The following morning, Simba turned up at the family’s door. Despite being “thin, emaciated and weak,” he was alive – and he’d managed to make it safely back home again.
“We could not believe it, it was truly a miracle. He was dishevelled and dirty and he’d lost nearly half of his body weight,” Mr Arnott said. “He’d obviously lost so much weight he could wiggle out of the hole but he’s tough we named him well – ‘Simba the Lion’.”
Vet Lynne Gaskarth from Drove Veterinary Hospital said it was “incredible” that Simba “survived so long underground without access to food and water.” Apparently, the poor pup was severely dehydrated and had lost a quarter of his body weight. What a little fighter!
Of course, the Arnott family were overjoyed to be reunited with their fur baby – especially after believing him to be dead.
“I’d even bought a plaque saying ‘RIP Simba’ so when he suddenly reappeared we could not believe it – we were overjoyed,” Mr. Arnott said.
What a brilliant ending!
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