On Wednesday, August 23, beloved nine-year-old Barrack Heights dog Boris escaped from his yard and was clipped by a passing car. Frightened, the red heeler-cross-American staffy bolted and was last seen more than 500 metres from the incident, rushing northbound along Shellharbour Road in Warilla.
For nearly a fortnight, Boris has evaded not only his owners’ best efforts at finding him, but those of the 500-plus people who have joined the Facebook community group ‘HELP FIND BORIS’.
“I've been keeping up on everything and I've been posting updates in his group every day,” said Boris’s owner, Tom Dahne.
“I've been to the RSPCA. I've been to all the vets. I've been handing out flyers, doing mail drops, got the social group going, got heaps of people out there looking for him, been driving around every day within the area. I've sent another 30 emails to vets outside the perimeter.
“We've done all the searches. We've done the beaches, we've done Warilla pool, we've done all the bushland around the creeks and we are going to also do Blackbutt, because that's a big area up there… and I'm focusing on between Windang and Primbee bushland.
“I've got a lot of people in his group that are actually going out every day, walking their dogs and keeping an eye out.”
Tom has had help from Queensland-based dog trainer and pet detective Annette Ross, who has donated her expertise. Tom and Annette believe Boris may have regressed to survival instincts and could be seeking refuge in nearby bushland or in a nook of a home or structure anywhere within a 25-kilometre radius.
“[Annette] said that Boris could hide in bushland, as long as he's got access to fresh water, and he can be there from seven days to two weeks before he comes out and starts looking for stuff,” Tom said.
“She has put a couple of posts up on the group and she's given me information like do not call the dog because you’ll scare him away if you call him with his name, as if he's been hit, he's in trauma.”
Tom said best practice for anyone who sees a missing dog is not to approach it, but to take a photo, noting where and what kind of dog it is, then contact council rangers, check Facebook groups and post a ‘found’ photo.
“They should not try to approach it unless the dog approaches you and it's friendly,” Tom said. “Because if a dog is missing and scared of people and they try to catch it, it could just cause the dog to flee again and then that dog might flee back into traffic and get injured.”
As the search for Boris enters its 12th day, Tom is calling on people to stick to their routines – drive their usual work routes, walk their dogs – but to stay alert for a dog in distress and check any potential cubbyholes beneath homes or in sheds and garages.
While Tom and his family continue their daily searches and await the results of an audit on Boris’s microchip, to learn the date of its last scan, the gravity of having more than 500 people – mostly strangers – working alongside them to bring Boris home is not lost on him.
“He's had overwhelming support to find him and there's a lot of people in the community that don't even know him but really care for him,” Tom said. “He's hit a soft spot with a lot of people.
“I've had people print flyers off and drop them to my place… and had people print flyers and put up signs, like, I've been driving around and I've seen signs that I didn't put up. So the community's been great.
“He's a gorgeous dog. He's got a cheeky personality. He won't personally approach a person and I don’t know what his character is now because he's been away for that long and he'd be hungry and he'd be sore… but he's a joker. He's a character.”
To join the BRING BORIS HOME group, follow this link
