A miniature dachshund that went missing 16 months ago on Kangaroo Island in South Australia has been spotted alive and well – but continues to evade a team of volunteer searchers and wildlife experts who say they are “amazed” the dog survived for so long in the wild.
Valerie weighed less than 4kg, had a pink collar and “would never leave [the] side” of her owner, Georgia Gardner, before she went missing in November 2023.
Gardner said that she and her partner, Josh Fishlock, from Albury in New South Wales, were holidaying on the island, renowned for its native wildlife, when Valerie escaped from her pen at their campsite at Stokes Bay before running into the scrub.
Despite initial sightings and the couple searching for a week with the help of Kangaroo Island locals, Valerie was not seen again – until recent months.
About a year after she first went missing, the couple heard via social media that Valerie had been spotted on the island. Kangala Wildlife Rescue then volunteered its services towards Valerie’s search.
“Based on first-hand accounts and video evidence, we now know that Valerie is alive,” Kangala Wildlife Rescue wrote on its Facebook page last week. “She runs at the first sign of humans or vehicles, and despite the best efforts of dedicated Island locals, Valerie has been impossible to catch.”
The dog was last seen 15km from where she went missing, according to the organisation.
It has now set up and is monitoring a series of traps with cameras in an attempt to coax the tiny dog out of a very large search area, Gardner told Guardian Australia.
She said she and Fishlock were in disbelief when they were given news that Valerie had been spotted alive.
“It’s been so crazy. Even with the really recent sightings, we were both just like, ‘No, don’t get your hopes up,’” she said.
“But, especially with the photograph that we got sent and with the confidence in Kangala Wildlife Rescue, now we’re just starting to edge to more like, ‘OK, how are we going to get to the island if we have to pick her up?’”
Valerie’s apparent survival skills were “incredible” – and unexpected – she said.
“We thought, instead of her surviving out in the wild, maybe someone had kind of adopted her or she was hanging out with some other dogs and getting their food because she was an absolute little princess.
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“She never left my side. She was not a very outside, rough-and-tough dog. To think that she even went one night outside in the rain, oh my gosh. To think that she’s gone a year and a half is incredible.”
A Kangala director, Jared Karran, told the Adelaide Advertiser he was “amazed” that Valerie had survived the wilderness and suspected she had lived on a diet of roadkill and dam water.
Some experts suggested Valerie may have received help from people on the island, but Prof Paul McGreevy, of the University of Sydney’s veterinary school, said dachshunds, like all dogs, were “extremely resourceful”.
“Dogs are the greatest opportunists in the animal kingdom: that’s one of their core skills,” he said.
To survive, Valerie needed water, shelter in the winter and food, he said.
While not adapted to the Australian bush, mini dachshunds were well disposed to finding food on the ground, McGreevy said.
“Hypothetically, she could eat birds, frogs and mice, but it’s more likely she was eating carrion. And, unfortunately, the reality is that dogs are opportunists and they will eat faecal material.
“If a human had been keeping Valerie alive, why hadn’t they spotted she was wearing a pink collar and so probably was being missed by someone?”
In Australia, the vast majority of “wild dogs” are, in fact, native dingos or dingo hybrids. Wild dog control is estimated to cost the economy $302m annually.
