“Never Lose Esperanza”: Teckel Valerie found “alive and healthy” after 529 days on an Australian island

The animal will soon find its teachers. A Teckel called Valerie was found in Australia after a long streak of 529 days and intense research efforts on an island where kangaroos, the Koalas and the penguins abound.

“Valerie has been safely recovered,” he is “alive and healthy,” said the Animal Protection Association on Friday, April 25, who sought to capture this chasing him on Kangaroo Island, in southern Australia.

“We are absolutely delighted and deeply relieved that Valerie is finally safe” and soon on the way to find his teachers, said Kangala Wildlife Rescies association on social networks.

The board, a species also called a sausage dog, had fled during a camp exit with its owners, Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, letting its enclosure sink into the Australian shrub.

Since November 2023, he has escaped all research attempts, only recently making a discreet night appearance in surveillance cameras, where his pink collar was recognizable.

1,000 hunting hours

Its owners had abandoned all hope after research days on the island of more than 4,400 square kilometers. The missing dog was not seen for more than a year. Then, he was seen in video surveillance recordings and residents saw him again, pushing volunteers to relaunch the investigation to find it.

“Valerie seems impossible to catch,” still desperate rescuers in a message on social networks in March.

The volunteers spent more than 1,000 hours tracking the dog, traveled more than 5,000 kilometers and deployed cameras, traps and bait to try to recover it. After having caught the wandering dog, the members of the association said they take a “short rest to digest this incredible result.”

Despite its small size, the scripts “erected to be independent hunters of dangerous dams, can be brave to Temerity and a little stubborn”, according to the documentation of the American Kennel Club.

The owner of Valerie declared “incredibly grateful” to the volunteers who helped find her dog. “Never lose hope,” he wrote on social networks those who have lost a pet.