Tiptoe is a 2-year-old Lurcher. Her love in life is to run free and cuddle upside down on the sofa.

Tiptoe is a gentle, sensitive girl who loves life; she also loves to follow her nose and flush out scents, typical sighthound behaviour. Tiptoe has been trained to whistle recall with good effect, but this isn’t always reliable when the scent is fresh or she sees live prey running. Her instinct to chase is too strong, and she goes off in hot pursuit. I always free run her along with my other dogs well away from roads so that she can run and be free to exhibit natural behaviours however, this doesn’t prevent her from injuring herself, as we found out on the 21st Feb.

I bought a PitPat after experiencing her running further away from me than I was comfortable with whilst chasing a hare. This worried me, so I researched GPS for dogs and stumbled upon PitPat. Thank goodness I did because a few weeks later, on the 21st Feb at 8.25 am, the PitPat saved Tiptoe’s life.

I was walking her in a parkland with woodland running alongside a safe area. There were no deer in sight, and all was quiet. However, Tiptoe took up a scent and ran. 

I whistled to her, but she was engaged in hot pursuit, so didn’t break off from the scent. I called and whistled, but she didn’t appear, which was unusual. I waited and waited, but she didn’t appear as she normally would, and then I heard screaming – she was injured.

I opened the “location” tab on my PitPat app and could see her moving, then stop. She had travelled quite a distance. The PitPat icon wasn’t moving, so she was stationary; my heart was pounding. I ran back with my other dogs to the car. I followed the PitPat icon by road, got as close as I could, and then parked the car to pursue the icon on foot.

I climbed over a five-bar gate for forestry access only and walked deep into the woods following the PitPat icon. I stood where the icon was, but there was no sign of her. I was panicking, trying to breathe and stay calm, but then there was movement beside me, and there she was, trying to crawl to me out of a gully. 

She was whimpering and in a lot of pain. I stumbled down the gully to lift her out, only to see her left leg was very badly broken. Her front leg was lacerated, and she was shaking, clearly going into shock.

I carried her back to the car and drove her to the vet where she had emergency surgery to repair her leg. She has two metal plates now. She had fractured her Tibia and Fibula.

Without the Pitpat I WOULD NOT have found her in acres of dense woodland. The PitPat saved her life.

When I bought the PitPat, I never expected to have to use it in this way, but thank goodness I had it to rely on. Without it, I wouldn’t have found her, which doesn’t bear thinking about.

The signal throughout was strong & reliable.

Thank you PitPat

Emma & Tiptoe

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