Australia|After 529 Days, Valerie the Dachshund Has Been Rescued
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/world/australia/dachshund-australia-valerie-rescued.html
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She survived more than a year in the Australian wilderness. But reuniting her with her owners will take a little more time.
April 28, 2025, 12:04 p.m. ET
Valerie disappeared in November 2023, slipping out of her pen and into the bush on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. For the next 529 days, the miniature dachshund eluded capture, despite the occasional spotting by locals and surveillance cameras.
Now, her journey is finally over. Valerie has been recaptured “safe and sound,” her rescuers said late last week, and she is now being re-acclimated to domestic life in preparation for a reunion with her owners.
“It was a long tough battle” finding Valerie, said Jared Karran of Kangala Wildlife Rescue, which helped lead the efforts to find the dachshund.
Valerie and her owners, Josh Fishlock and Georgia Gardner, were visiting Kangaroo Island off the coast of Adelaide, South Australia, about 17 months ago when the miniature dachshund escaped from her pen and disappeared.
The couple and locals searched for her for five days before reluctantly giving up.
But more than a year later, Valerie was spotted about 10 miles from where she had escaped. She was recognized in part by the pink collar she was wearing the day she disappeared.
Ms. Gardner had called Valerie “not a very outside, rough-and-tough dog,” but the dachshund might have survived by drinking from dams and eating roadkill and plants, rescuers said.
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