For a sausage dog named Snag, the only way to say thanks for rescuing me just has to be a sausage sizzle.
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Wodonga couple Karen and Mark Ellis held a community barbecue at Killara on Saturday to show their appreciation for all the help given while Snag was missing for four days and three nights earlier this month.
The two-year-old dachshund chased after some kangaroos at Huon Hill and could not be found, despite Mr and Mrs Ellis looking repeatedly at all hours.
Facebook posts across Border lost and found pages encouraged complete strangers to join the search, some going out at night with spotlights.
"People had come from Albury and Thurgoona, people that we don't even know were actually out looking for him," Mrs Ellis said.
"We'd just get home and someone would sight him, so we'd go out again and call him. Everyone who had spotted him tried to call him, but he kept running away."
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In the end it was two dogs that found one little lost pooch, with Rebel, a blue merle Australian shepherd, and her English blue roan cocker spaniel friend Lucy able to track down Snag.
The heroines have had tracking training and their owners, Killara's Giselle Henning and Marg Thomas, of Yackandandah, thought it worth a try, despite an old scent and no clear idea where Snag might be by then.
"It's like asking the amateur jogger to suddenly run the New York marathon and yet both these two dogs just do it without even hesitating," Dr Henning said.
"It took us about an hour of heading in the right general direction.
"I was blown away by how these dogs made what we thought was going to be hard, made it look so easy."
Mrs Ellis said Snag had been cautious at first but "once he realised it was me, he was over the moon".
"There were tears all around, we really didn't think we were going to see him again," she said.
Snag had lost a little weight but was otherwise well and seemed in good spirits at the barbecue, held a week after he was found.
"We couldn't thank everybody enough, so this is our way of saying thank-you," Mrs Ellis said.
"Everybody was just absolutely amazing, it restored our faith in humanity, that's for sure."
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