Kennedy News and MediaA dog is temporarily unable to walk after being so scared by New Year’s Eve fireworks she ran away and went missing for 30 hours, wearing her paws out.
Amy the greyhound-whippet cross bolted from her family’s back garden on New Year’s Eve after a firework exploded, leaving her so terrified she ran through a reinforced hedge and disappeared.
The one-year-old dog went missing for more than 30 hours from her home in Conwy, North Wales, leaving her owners Joanne and Nick Gardner and their two sons frantic with worry.
You can see the extent of Amy’s injuries below:
The injured pooch had to have ingrained grit and ‘flapping skin’ removed from her paws, which were ‘red raw’ after the incident. Each foot had to then be wrapped in bandages, making her temporarily unable to walk.
Joanne said she felt ‘sick’ when she realised Amy had escaped from the garden, with her two sons Jack Harrison, 10, and Archie Harrison, 8, ‘distraught’.
It wasn’t until 30 hours later the family eventually found Amy cowering in a neighbour’s garden after they recognised the scared pooch from a number of Facebook posts the family had put out.
Kennedy News and MediaJoanne, a healthcare deputy manager, said Amy had been on edge all evening as the fireworks in their local area were very loud and started early. ‘It wasn’t just fireworks for 15 minutes – they were going off all night from 5.30pm all the way through,’ she said.
When Joanne opened the door to go to the utility room at around 11.30pm, she didn’t realise the dog had slipped out behind her into the garden. As she did, a firework went off and ‘spooked her’, leading the terrified dog to bolt through a hedge.
Nick went straight out to search for Amy while Joanne stayed inside with Jack and Archie, with Nick looking for her until 3am. However, he couldn’t find her anywhere.
Joanne explained:
Where do you start in the dark? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack – especially as she’s so fast and when she gets scared she likes to hide. There were so many places she could have been.
Kennedy News and MediaNick, a plumbing and heating engineer, returned home and slept on the sofa downstairs in the hope Amy might emerge from her hiding place and scratch at the door to come inside. The family left her blanket on the gate post and put dog biscuits on the path to try and entice her, but to no avail.
The search continued the following day and Joanne shared posts about Amy on every Facebook group she is a member of, hoping someone might spot her and bring her home. However, after more than 24 hours there was still no sign of Amy.
Joanne returned to work on January 2 while Nick and the boys visited vets in the area to let them know Amy was missing. Bracing themselves for another day of searching, at around 10.30am Nick received a call from a woman who thought she’d found Amy in her mum’s garden.
Kennedy News and MediaThe hopeful dad drove half a mile down the road to find Amy cowering under a bench. While she initially refused to come out, she soon recognised her family and began to wag her tail.
Joanne said:
I went to work worried sick, when Nick rang to say she’d been found I burst into tears. I rang my mum and she was crying – everyone was over the moon – I just wanted to get home from work and see her.
The lady who found her only saw her that morning and has no idea how long Amy been in the garden. Recognising her from the Facebook post, she rang Nick to let us know.
She tried to get Amy to eat but she was so shaken, having been out for 30 hours, that she just sat terrified cowering under the bench – you could tell she was traumatised by what had happened.
Kennedy News and MediaNick made a makeshift bed for Amy in the living room and covered her in a blanket, where she quickly fell asleep. The family then took her to a vet when Joanne returned home from work, concerned about her painful-looking paws.
Joanne explained:
When I got home she was fast asleep and she didn’t get up to the door like she normally does. She wasn’t herself at all and when I looked at her paws you could see there was quite a bit of damage to them – some of the skin was flapping off.
The vet assessed Amy and said there was no internal damage, but their main concern was her paws. The dog was given painkillers, her paws were cleaned and bits of skin had to be cut away before antiseptic was put on them and they were bandaged up.
Amy is unable to walk for the time being and is on bed rest while her paws heal. When she needs to go to the toilet she has to be carried outside and wear plastic booties to keep the bandages dry.
Kennedy News and MediaJoanne hopes their story will make others think twice before setting off fireworks, saying that although ‘everyone’s entitled to do what they want in their own home’ it would be nice if they’d ‘pre-warn people and say they’d do them at a certain time when everyone’s dogs are inside’.
Hopefully Amy will make a full recovery and her story will prevent something similar happening to other dogs.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).