WHAT set out to be a relaxing five day stay in Venus Bay for one Melbourne couple turned into a nightmare when their eight month old Border Collie went missing.
Max and Janice Cuddon were strolling on Beach No.3 on Monday May 20 when their pup, Jaxon, who was on a red five metre lead, bolted after some seagulls and disappeared into the dense scrub of the dunes.
Despite calling out to Jaxon he didn’t come back.
With help from the general store staff, the couple got a post out on the community Facebook page, PBE Real Estate Agent printed off and laminated posters for the pair and Venus Bay photography flew the drone over the area, but to no avail.
By Tuesday afternoon locals had got word of the missing dog and many were combing the beaches, sand dunes and scrub along with the pair, but Jaxon couldn’t be found.
On Wednesday morning the couple were frantic as Max had to leave to go back to Melbourne and Janice didn’t want to leave without Jaxon.
“(I thought) I can’t leave him, you know. I don’t want him suffering, if he’s gone he’s gone, but I need to know whether he’s alive or dead. And I don’t want him suffering, nor do I want him being fully well and left out there,” Janice recounts.
They got in touch with Wonthaggi’s Rescue to Release who came equipped with thermal imaging binoculars, again to no avail, and many people continued to search, including one Tarwin Lower family and their teenage son.
The teenager, who wishes not to be named, is an animal lover and has helped his mum, a wildlife carer, to look after and find injured wildlife since he was very young.
He possesses good tracking skills and is able to find, follow and distinguish different animal tracks.
The teen followed dog tracks through the scrub, deep into the bush, which he knows well, having grown up there, and further along spotted more dog tracks.
He came across part of the red lead that Jaxon had chewed off and knew he was on the right path.
On hearing a strange noise, the teen crawled through thick bush to check it out, and there, miraculously, was Jaxon crouching down in the scrub.
Soon after, Jaxon was reunited with an extremely grateful Janice.
“The feeling was unbelievable. It was complete joy, but also overwhelming that people would give up their time and search for a dog that they didn’t know and for people that they hadn’t met,” said Janice.
The pair were amazed at the amount of support and help they received over the three days from so many local people.
“We were just a couple of tourists down at Venus Bay with a couple of dogs. And one of them escapes, but the whole community rallied behind us and just went out of their way to help. It was quite extraordinary,” said Max.
The Tarwin teenager said he was thrilled to have found Jaxon; who is safely home again and while he is a somewhat reactive to sounds, he is otherwise back to being a normal pup, according to a very relieved and grateful Max and Janice.
