Sammy, a 9 month old male Samoyed, arrived with his new owner on Sunday 15 August in Failsworth, OL8. He was taken for a walk later that night when he got spooked by something and managed to run off.
After numerous sightings in the area, on Monday evening, Sammy seemed to then settle on the field at the side of Hollingwood cemetery. Alarmingly, this was right beside the M60. Lost dogs are especially attracted to motorways (probably because of the soothing humming sound) and this was a very dangerous situation for Sammy. We needed to act quickly and needed to get the word out to people who were searching to stop so that Sammy wouldn’t feel threatened and bolt.
We headed there with the thermal scope and scoped the area to try to see where Sammy was. There had been reports of him being injured. This field was large, with lots of clumps of bushes and trees so Sammy had plenty of places to hide. Samoyeds, because of their dense coat, don’t actually show up very well with thermal imaging so we resorted to using the infra red torch. (We always advise for people not to use torches with white light when looking for lost dogs as these scare dogs into bolting).
Sammy was seen to be moving from one clump of bushes to another. Our intention was to try to secure him by winning his trust with food but he wasn’t having any of that! After several hours in the pouring rain we had no option to head home with plans to set the trap at dawn. This gave us at the most 3 hours to sleep before setting off again.
Once the trap and live cameras were set the following morning, we retreated away from the initial area so as to give Sammy more confidence to explore the trap area.
Sammy, at first, did not go near the trap and so more scent trails were done leading to the trap. At 2.05pm, Sammy decided he was hungry and went into the trap to feed and was trapped. He is now happy and content where he belongs at home with no injuries except sore pads on his paws from all of the running that he did. Welcome home to your wonderful new family Sammy.
