Joy as family pet missing since truck crash found

Wednesday, 20 April 2022

Brenda Crook, left, with recovered dog Faye soon after she was found.

The family dog that went missing in the Bay of Plenty following a crash on Tuesday has been found alive after locals joined the search.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sam and Mike Tepania, their four children and four-year-old dog Faye were involved in a crash on the Kaimai Range on State Highway 2 when their truck rolled, breaking the window. Faye the dog was thrown out of the window and ran off in fear. Despite a search by locals she remained missing until Wednesday night .

Bay of Plenty local Brenda Crook had been helping look for the dog since 9am Wednesday, taking her own dog, Jacko, a blue heeler, to help pick up Faye’s scent. After searching for many hours, Crook’s dog found Faye who was resting in the bush having injured her leg.

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Faye missing when the vehicle she was in crashed on Kaimai Range

“I just really wanted to help and others joined me. Jacko was so pleased with himself to find her. I’m thrilled. Faye was scared but not badly hurt. I wrapped her in a blanket and fed her some treats and water. She’s asleep snoring now. I will take her to the vet tomorrow.”

The family, from Whangārei, had been visiting Ōpōtiki in the Eastern Bay of Plenty for Easter. They were on their way home on Tuesday in heavy rain when their truck skidded on the road surface.

“The road was so wet and slippy from the rain so when the wheels slipped, Mike had to correct it quickly to stop it going into the on coming traffic. That’s when we rolled four or five times - it was terrifying. My youngest is just five years old but luckily one of the other kids held him tight as we were rolling,” Sam told Stuff.

Crash on Kaimai Range where Faye the dog went missing

The family was transported to Tauranga hospital in an ambulance but were not seriously hurt. They were so distressed however that Faye the dog was nowhere to be seen.

“We saw her running up the road and turning into a kauri track. My son jumped in a car with a passer-by who had stopped when we crashed to see if we were okay. They tried to catch her, but she was so scared she just ran into the bush.”

Since then the local community has been searching for the dog, with hunters joining in and someone loaning a drone. The family drove to the crash spot and found paw prints on the track in the bush where the dog ran away, but Faye was nowhere to be seen.

”I left my jumper there, some of her biscuits and a blanket hoping she would follow the scent,” said Sam.

The family had to return to Whangārei without Faye to get the children home safely, and they had got as far as Wellsford, north of Auckland when they got a phone call that Faye had been found.

“We are all so happy, the kids are overjoyed. This woman had been searching for Faye since this morning with her own dog. It was her dog who sniffed out where Faye was. She has a broken leg, or it may be her ankle, and is going to need vet treatment. So we are just going to sort the kids with friends to look after them and then drive straight back.”

Sam said the family wanted to thank the Bay of Plenty community who had rallied around in the hunt for Faye.

“It has just been incredible - we are so grateful. We don’t know the area but the ambulance woman who took us to the hospital told us some community sites to put it on, and it was shared so many times. A group of hunters got together to go and search in the bush, and someone with a drone had been searching too. People travelled to the crash spot just to help look. It is overwhelming, and we thank you with all our heart for helping to find Faye – it means everything to us,” said Sam.