Helicopters, thermal-imaging equipment and thousands of volunteers are being deployed in the search for missing dogs in New Zealand, which has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the OECD.
In three separate cases this year, the search for missing dogs has attracted huge resources, thousands of dollars in donations and filled hundreds of hours as desperate owners have scoured the bush for their best friends.
More than 60% of New Zealand homes have at least one pet, and there are more pets than humans in the Pacific island country of 4.7 million.
On Sunday, Benny the beagle was found safe and well in Belmont regional park north of Wellington after being missing for nine days.
Benny’s owners hired a helicopter and used thermal imaging equipment and a megaphone from the SPCA to search for Benny, who was eventually found by friends hiking through the bush, a mere 100 metres from where he’d first disappeared.
In March, in a case described as “remarkable” and “unbelievable” by local media, Dunedin dog Meg was found alive five weeks after disappearing into the bush following a car crash.
Search and rescue volunteers gave up their free time to co-ordinate rescue efforts, hundreds of people scoured hundreds of hectares of dense bush, and a drone was deployed to search from the air.
Meg was evenutally found injured, sick and severely underweight on a farm not far from the crash sight.
She was treated for free by the Dunedin Wildlife hospital, which received more than NZ$4,000 (£2,051) in donations for her treatment from donors, as well as the NZ$2,000 reward from Cunningham, which the local farmer who found Meg refused to accept.
In March, Canterbury man Russell Waters hired a helicopter to search for his missing chocolate labrador Roger, as well as galvanising hundreds of volunteers to search.
He also considered offering his boat as a reward for the person who found Roger.
“He’s my best friend, he’s my best mate, he’s my life,” Waters told Newshub at the time.
“It’s not a matter of wanting him back, it’s a matter of needing him back, really.”
Roger was found whimpering in a ditch not far from Waters’s house, and vets believe he was hit by a car and couldn’t get home.