A Lucky Escape

After an uneventful day checking for foxes as part of our vermin control programme for farmers in Lanarkshire. We were on our way back to the Landrover when Suzie (an eight year old Jack Russell Terrier)  who was running loose hit the line of a fox and followed to ground in an old rabbit burrow, this was approximately three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Initially we could hear the terrier digging in but as she got further into the hillside the sounds faded till we could hear nothing. Now under normal circumstances any of our terriers that is being used to locate foxes is fitted with a locator collar so that in the event of any problems we can locate and extract the terrier as required by law. In this case however Suzie had not been worked she was only running loose to allow her to clean herself on the way back to the landrover.

The next sounds we heard from Suzie were after she had been to ground for more than one hour, the sounds we heard set the alarm bells ringing as we could hear her whining in a distressed manner deep in the hillside, time to form a plan of action. By this time we were loosing light, the decision was taking to try Mandy Suzie's daughter, with a locator collar to try and get a mark on Suzie and Mandy started to dig her way in towards her mother. At this time I will point out the relationship between all our terriers, Meg, Suzie, Sparky and Blompy are all brothers and sisters from the same litter. Mandy is Suzie's daughter, Miko is Meg's son, Havoc is a half brother to the first four mentioned. Now that we have explained that, the decision has been taken to allow the terriers to dig in towards Suzie in the hope that they can break through to her to release her from whatever predicament she found herself in. While the terriers were digging below ground the terrier men were digging above ground using the locator on the digging terriers collar to guide there efforts. The diggers left at that time were Bill, Zander and Dom, I left at this point with the Landrover at about 6.30p.m. I had already phoned home to alert them to the situation so that flasks, lamps and extra digging tools could all be left out, I also contacted Donny and Mick to arrange for two more terriers and two more diggers. After getting supplies I picked up Donny with his terrier Havoc and left Mick on alert in case we needed him to go the yard to pick up power tools generator etc. He would later come out to Lanarkshire about 11.30 that night bringing more supplies and his terrier Blompy. As I was about to head back Bill phoned to say that they could no longer hear Suzie and he was very apprehensive about the outcome, they had already dug a platform into the banking and were using the terriers in rotation to try and dig through to Suzie, when we got back we managed to get the Landrover within 20 feet of the holes which meant we had good light and power if needed, round about the back of 9 Meg who is the most experienced terrier and best digger broke through to something we thought it was Suzie as Meg and Suzie don't get on but after 10 minutes it dug away from the terrier, the holes were very soft sand. We took Meg out and replaced her with Havoc who dug on for approximately 3 and a half hours, I left at the back of 11 and met Mick at Stonehouse when we came back Blompy took his turn at digging, we were following the terriers into the hillside but luckily the hole was rising we carried on like this till approximately 10.30 am on the Sunday morning, one of the terriers was in digging (I think it was blompy) we heard growling and Suzie gave a couple of bays that was the first we had heard her in over 12 hours from then it took us just over an hour to get to Suzie who was stuck fast and half turned in the tube with sand up to her chin and totally immobile, a very lucky escape she had been trapped for 21 hours and would never have got out if not for the efforts of her family.