Quillie was being minded by this family with the Cairn so he knew them only on a casual basis. He was two and a half when this event occurred. He is featured in the video the yarn harlot on our site. The people concerned are Dick and Ana and they live in Canberra.
Jacko our Cairn terrier sadly passed away earlier this year, aged 14. Jacko had dementia, was blind and deaf but still nuzzled up to us when we went to comfort him. Most of the time he just walked around in circles and ended up in a corner where boundary fences met. He was in no pain and was eating twice a day up until the day he died.
Quillie tried to play with him but there was no response so he used to sit next to him wherever Jacko stopped his roaming.
Being in the condition Jacko was in we had to contain him securely at all times - he insisted in sleeping outside in his kennel at night so we located the kennel on our back porch and covered the spaces between the balustrade uprights in case he tried to push through them.
One night he must have got himself totally trapped because he squeezed through a tiny gap, fell over a metre into the garden below and disappeared. I discovered him missing about 5.00 am (I checked on him three times every night).
We were distraught and started searching the neighbourhood at dawn. We feared he had stumbled onto the street and fallen down a stormwater drain so we lifted every cover nearby and my son went down the drains with a torch but we couldn't find him.
All this time Quillie was with us and we could tell he knew Jacko was missing.
I then thought maybe Quillie can help us (like a bloodhound) so I gave Quillie a good sniff of Jacko's blanket and said "find Jacko". Quillie immediately went to the garden beside the deck and picked up a scent, straining at the leash. He followed a scent trail which was next to the boundaries of the houses on the lower side of our house. The path he followed was exactly how Jacko would have gone, feeling his way against fences and walls.
The trail stopped at the first corner where there was a large storm water opening at the kerb. Quillie sniffed around the edges and looked at us with those haunting eyes.
Despite lifting the manhole cover and checking the pipes as far as we could see there was no sign of Jacko. Fortunately, the drop from the drain opening to the bottom was less than a metre so Jacko would have survived but we were concerned further that he may have injured himself.
In Jacko's condition, he always gravitated to the lowest part of the yard so we crossed the road further down the street and searched the exit of the pipe where it entered a natural creek with high banks. We then followed the creek about 50 metres and found our poor lost Jacko curled up in a puddle covered with mud and slime; he couldn't go any further. We gathered him up and rushed him home, checked him for any broken bones, gave him a warm bath and some breakfast. He then slept all day with Quillie close by.
I doubt that we would have found Jacko in time if it wasn't for Quillie giving us the lead we needed. It started to rain steadily shortly after and Jacko would have drowned if we hadn't found him when we did.
If there are medals for dogs then Quilie is nominated.
