Albert: A rescue dog who won hearts and united a community
ALBERT came into Kylie Miller’s Gippland family as a frightened brown-eyed rescue dog. Read her story about how the greyhound captured hearts and united a community.
VIC News
Don't miss out on the headlines from VIC News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
IT’S a saga that captured the hearts and minds of people around the world — the sad story of a handsome, brown-eyed boy named Albert, damaged by experiences unknown and unimaginable — and a small community’s effort to save him.
Like many love stories, this one begins with a broken heart. Albert was adopted to help heal our pain following the deaths of two much-loved family pets, just six weeks apart. Instead, we were swept into a months-long effort to heal his.
A pound hound from Wagga Wagga, in regional NSW, Albert had been rescued by the remarkable Rhonda Helman, from Country Kats and K9s Rescue, who has devoted her life to finding, rehabilitating and rehoming the homeless and the unloved.
MEDICINAL CANNABIS PRODUCTS FOR PETS RESEARCH
PETS LAP UP NEW ‘UBER FOR VETS’ APP
We found him through PetRescue, a national animal welfare charity offering 10,000 adoptable pets from 979 rescue groups around Australia.
Big sad brown eyes ringed with black gazed out from the screen, prominent ribs and scars marring his lean, greyhound frame.
“Medium male greyhound x kelpie dog”, the listing said.
A “good family pet”. It was love at first sight, but Albert came with a warning — Rhonda said he might not be easy.
He’d been picked up as a stray and had spent four months in her care, restoring his health, healing wounded paws and building his trust in the world.
No one knew his exact age or breed — thought to be greyhound-kelpie cross — or what he had been through. Scars on his body and etched into his psyche suggested nothing good. A previous adoption attempt had failed after a week because of his deep-seated fears. Ours lasted less than a day.
It started well. Albert was nervous but travelled calmly, ate, drank and slept quietly inside, staying close and watchful as I worked.
Then, suddenly and without warning, while we were out in the yard, he tore across the lawn and cleared a 1.5m fence, racing blindly, in terror, down the road.
So began a long effort to bring our boy home, supported by our tiny East Gippsland community of Newlands Arm, the generous folks from Gippsland Greyhounds and a network of sighthound experts, owners and animal behaviourists, who heard of Albert’s plight on social media and made contact from around the world.
But first a point of clarity. Our experience with Albert is exceptional.
While adopting a rescue pet may bring challenges, most pass behaviour tests before they are offered for adoption.
Albert had spent months with foster carers building his confidence without incident.
He’d been off lead in our yard just a few minutes when he was spooked. His brief time here, and escape over a high paling fence rather than through a gate, meant he had left no scent to mark his way home.
The timing of whatever spooked him was disastrous.
He’d had no chance to bond with us, was alone in a strange place, with no food or shelter and winter fast approaching. Fearful of so much, including people, loud noise, cats, wind and even the rustle of leaves underfoot, Albert was unmotivated by food and was unlikely to respond to — or possibly even to know — his name.
Our tiny community, bordered on one side by the Gippsland Lakes and the other by farmland, halves during winter as holiday homes fall vacant and retirees head north seeking sun. There were myriad places to hide.
Immediately we notified the council, updated his microchip details and visited the neighbouring farmers to assure them he posed no threat.
Fortunately for Albert and for us, the community rallied behind him.
Within minutes of me posting about his escape on Facebook, strangers were helping search the lakeside spit of scrub into which he’d disappeared. As the first days passed, people we didn’t know left notes at our door, another set up a Facebook page where residents could share their sightings.
There were regular breakthroughs. A day after he escaped, Albert was seen near our house late at night, standing beneath a street lamp. Knowing he could find his way home, we started to leave out food; within a week he was visiting each night, eating from a bowl at our front door. But he wouldn’t come close, chose not to sleep in the kennel we bought, and fled upon approach.
Rhonda drove 10 hours from her home north of Wagga Wagga — the first of three trips to assist us — hoping her familiarity would bring him in, but numerous interruptions prevented him coming that night; she drove home again, sad and frustrated.
We updated social media, and new local friends organised a letterbox drop to ask people not to approach him, but to let us know instead. Social media took off and strangers started to message me in private from around Australia and overseas.
“What’s going on with your dog?” one asked. “I haven’t seen an update and wondered if you’ve found him.” I was confused. I had been updating two local groups regularly. “Where did you see it?” “Oh, everywhere,” she said. “All the sighthound groups have shared it. A friend in the US asked about it, too.”
We were inundated with advice and offers of help — everyone from vets to animal behaviourists, animal rescuers and random strangers, who thought they had the answers.
We constructed a run in our yard, added fence toppers to create a 2m barrier and commissioned a large, custom-built kennel so he had somewhere more sheltered to sleep.
Albert loved dogs, we knew, so we fostered another greyhound through Gippsland Greyhounds — a gentle, retired racer called Teddy — hoping his calming presence might draw Albert home. We watched in anticipation when they first met in our yard. Albert didn’t stay. Teddy did.
There were light moments, too. Like the time he enticed a friends’ dog from her backyard and together they romped and roamed through the paddocks nearby. We knew he was healthy and having fun. Or the time I doorknocked a strangers’ house and a big man emerged spattered in blood. Butchering a deer, as it happened, but I never went alone after that.
The setbacks continued. Well-meaning locals were leaving out food, concerned about his welfare as the weather grew cold.
He was eating well but had no need to return home.
He became increasingly nocturnal and was harder to spot. We adjusted our security lights and left food on the deck, relishing every chance to see him.
Days dragged into weeks and the suggestions flooded in. “Lie on the ground and he’ll come to you,” we were told. Doesn’t work, he’s too scared of strangers. “Why don’t you drug him?” people asked. Because a greyhound can cover a lot of distance in the time it takes for the drugs to kick in. “Trap him?” Make his fear worse and risk losing his trust forever? “Tranquilliser darts?” As one friend put it rather neatly, “Crikey, that’s a bit white rhino!” Some feared the penalty costs if rangers were to trap him. Privately, we laughed. No chance, we knew, but we would gladly have paid if they could. At least we’d know he was safe.
We had to play a long game — any sustainable victory would require us to win his trust. He had to want to stay.
Two or three greyhound-loving friends kept our spirits buoyed with hands-on assistance, practical advice and regular calls and messages. They kept us on track.
Well-meaning commentary continued online.
“But you have to catch him now,” people warned. “It’s starting to get cold and he hasn’t got a coat, he’ll freeze”, “It’s raining, he needs shelter”, “He’ll be run over on the road”, “He’ll be attacked by wild dogs”, “There are lambs around, the farmers will shoot him on sight”, “Aren’t you worried he’ll be bitten by a snake?”
As if it wasn’t keeping us awake. Kind and well-meaning doesn’t always help.
The weight of expectation continued to grow. When I started reducing social media updates, I’d be inundated with messages instead.
We were working full- time and juggling busy lives while riding a roller coaster of hope and despair.
There were heartbreaking disappointments. One night we managed to close the gate behind him, only to watch as he flew across the yard and again scaled the fence to escape. Another night, home alone, I captured him in the run, but was bowled over when I inched open the gate to try to attach a lead so I could bring him in out of the cold.
By then the fence he cleared was 2m high
Each time we learnt something new but, in the end, it was the oldest of lessons that ultimately brought him home. Patience is a virtue, says Mum. And patience was the key.
Day by day, week by week, we inched his food bowl further into the yard until eventually he was eating regularly in the run. We never missed a night, paying a pet sitter to leave out food if we were away. He had bones, chicken necks and treats. We started to scatter food on the grass so he couldn’t gobble it so quickly from his bowl.
To overcome the risk of him fleeing when he sensed movement, my partner rigged up a system that enabled us to close the run from the sofa while Albert was outside eating in the dark.
After nine long weeks and several attempts, we finally pulled it off and he was safe. The first thing I did was post an update to our community Facebook page, thanking them for their support. We couldn’t have done it without them.
Albert’s return is a profound relief, a triumph of resilience, love, sheer bloody-mindedness and the support of a community who sees value in an animal and works together to make sure he’s safe.
Everyone loves a fairytale ending and Albert eventually will get his. For the next few weeks he will stay with Rhonda on her farm while we all assess how best to meet his needs. If he doesn’t return to us, Rhonda will give him the loving home he deserves and we can visit as we wish.
In the meantime, his giant brother Teddy fills our hearts with joy.
More details:
‘Angels’: Hero Coles workers save mum’s life
A mother of three has opened up on how her life was saved after she suddenly collapsed while doing a routine supermarket shop.
Wildlife and traffic fears over music festival
Wildlife advocates fear a weekend music festival in central Victoria will endanger native animals including rescued joeys.