- A wiener dog has managed to survive over a year on Australia’s Kangaroo Island after going missing during a camping trip in November 2023
- There have been recent sightings of Valerie the miniature dachshund, but she has proved ‘impossible to catch,” according to Kangala Wildlife Rescue
- Valerie’s pet parents are committed to getting the dog home once she is caught
Valerie, the miniature dachshund, went missing in November 2023 while on a camping vacation at Kangaroo Island with her owners, Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock.
According to Kangala Wildlife Rescue, which is involved in the volunteer-powered search efforts to find Valerie, the under-8-pound dog was wearing a pink collar at the time of her disappearance. She escaped from her pen at the campsite at Stokes Bay before running into the scrub.
The couple spent days searching for the canine with many locals from the area, but Valerie didn’t turn up anywhere. Eventually, Gardner and Fishlock had to return to their lives on the mainland and hoped Kangaroo Island locals would continue the search.
According to The Guardian, about a year after the dachshund went missing, her pet parents heard via social media that Valerie had been spotted on the island. Now, 16 months after the tiny dog’s disappearance, sightings of Valerie are regularly rolling in, though the pet pooch has proved “impossible to catch.”
Kangala Wildlife Rescue/Facebook
“No one thought a little Dachshund like Valerie would survive alone in the wild, but more than 12 months after she went missing, regular reports started coming in about a Dachshund with a pink collar being seen about 15 kilometers from Stokes Bay,” a March 22 Instagram post from Kangala Wildlife Rescue reads. “Based on firsthand accounts and video evidence we now know that Valerie is alive. She runs at the first sign of humans or vehicles and despite the best efforts of dedicated Island locals, Valerie has been impossible to catch.”
The rescue organization also shared that volunteers from Kangala have “set out on a mission to find and catch Valerie so she can be reunited with her loving parents who stand ready to provide the care she will need to come home again.”
“We are using surveillance and various trapping and luring methods in the area she was last seen to try and bring her home. This is a tiny dog in a huge area, and we will need help from the public to report any sightings and a lot of luck,” the organization added.
Gardner said she is shocked by her pint-sized pup’s survival skills.
“We thought, instead of her surviving out in the wild, maybe someone had kind of adopted her, or she was hanging out with some other dogs and getting their food because she was an absolute little princess,” she said, per The Guardian.
“She never left my side. She was not a very outside, rough-and-tough dog. To think that she even went one night outside in the rain, oh my gosh. To think that she’s gone a year and a half is incredible,” Gardner continued.
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Kangala Wildlife Rescue/Facebook
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Jared Karran, a director at Kangala, told the Adelaide Advertiser, per The Guardian, that he was “amazed” that Valerie had survived the Australian wilderness. He suspects she has been living on roadkill and dam water.
Gardner said that it would “mean everything” to be reunited with their “princess,” according to local media outlet Network Ten.
“It would just mean that our little family is finally complete,” Gardner added.
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