The place’s Cookie? Stars assist in Epping Forest hunt for runaway whippet | Canine

Thermal drones, K9 tracker canine, stake-outs and determined pleas from Pixie Lott, Jennifer Saunders and Anita Rani: the hunt for Cookie the whippet – misplaced in Epping Forest since November – is gathering tempo.

The 18-month-old sighthound went lacking eight weeks in the past within the 6,000-acre forest, after recognizing a herd of deer and chasing after her quarry at 30mph.

Sporting a particular black dog-fleece jumper, she has since been sighted steadily all around the forest – most lately final Thursday – and is believed to be surviving on rabbits, wooden pigeons and roadkill.

“Usually, she has wonderful recall and is rather well skilled, however she noticed that herd of deer … and that was it: she bolted off,” mentioned her proprietor, Leonie Freeman, who lives 20 minutes away from the forest in north-east London. There was no solution to know the place she had gone, and she or he didn’t come again. “In the event you’re a canine proprietor, that is your biggest worry.”

Freeman, her husband and their two “distraught” kids – Milo, eight, and Nancy, 4 – spent hours within the forest that day looking for her, whereas continually listening to that she was being noticed elsewhere. “It was an absolute nightmare.”

She thinks her whippet, who has practically 8,500 followers on Instagram, went “wild” after being chased that night by a well-intentioned member of the general public who was making an attempt to seize her. “She was terrified – and she or he fairly shortly went into this deep survival mode. She’s principally dwelling like a fox, and hiding from folks as a result of she thinks everybody’s a predator.”

Canine lovers reminiscent of Lott, Rani, Saunders, Mark Wright and Freeman’s MP, Stella Creasy, have all shared posts on social media in regards to the lacking canine, and a crowdfunding marketing campaign to carry Cookie residence has raised greater than £6,000.

This enabled Freeman to rent a K9 tracker canine – a cocker spaniel referred to as Harvey who specialises find misplaced canine – to search for Cookie, in addition to a thermal drone and an expert trapper. She and a military of volunteers are additionally roasting chickens to place in meals stations across the forest twice a day, within the hope of luring Cookie into a daily routine in order that she may be trapped.

“If she’d been a cockapoo or a smaller canine, there’s no manner she would have survived eight weeks. However she will hunt. She’s younger, match and powerful, and she or he has a naturally excessive prey drive. So she is by some means surviving.”

Freeman takes hope from the truth that Harvey discovered contemporary scent of Cookie near the place the whippet was lately sighted. “He was actually helpful in with the ability to verify a few of her routes, and among the sightings that have been a bit of hazy.”

However, she provides, he’s “off the case” now. “We predict that any energetic looking is pushing her away.”

Between them, she and her husband, Nick, spend 10 to 12 hours within the forest day-after-day, replenishing the meals stations and hoping that Cookie will recognise them, all whereas making an attempt to carry down their jobs and home-school their younger kids. “We’re tag-teaming being out within the forest day-after-day and evening. We’re exhausted. The home appears to be like like a bomb’s gone off, and regular life has simply gone out the window.”

What retains her going is the assist and “unbelievable” acts of kindness she has acquired from strangers and fellow canine homeowners all around the world, notably within the sighthound group, and she or he could be very grateful for the assistance of the Epping Forest wardens. “We’re dwelling by means of such a garbage time with Covid, and bleak information in all places you go. Someway this little misplaced canine appears to have discovered its manner into folks’s hearts. It is going to make so many individuals joyful if she’s discovered. Everybody simply wants ending to a narrative proper now.”