The Story Of A Real Life Littlest Hobo Bulldog Who Got Lost In The Forest

An American bulldog was found last week after being lost in the wilderness for 8 months.

 The dog is thought to have survived by hiding from farmers who threatened to shoot her and scavenging for food.

 Izzy slipped out of her collar and disappeared while going on a daily country walk.

Her owners Carol O'Neil and partner Gerry Clarke spent hours frantically looking for the rescue dog in vain before returning home heartbroken. They ended up spending all their spare time over the next eight months searching for Izzy. Walking for miles through the Welsh wilderness in all kinds of weather.

The couple eventually recruited up to 10 dog lovers to help locate Izzy calling themselves non other than "TEAM IZZY"

After five months the couple heard from a farmer who said Izzy had made friends with his smaller dog and was regularly coming onto his land.

But it took another three months before they finally managed to catch her - after enlisting a marksman to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart.

Carol, 55, and Gerry, 53, called in the trained marksman when other local farmers threatened to shoot Izzy to protect their livestock.

 She ended up being found about four miles from her home in Wattsville, near Newport.

Izzy is now slowly getting used to human contact again. Ms O'Neil said: 'People have been amazing. I just can't believe it.

When we got her back I bawled my eyes out. I couldn't stop looking at her for days. I never thought I'd get this ending. 'She's still really nervous. We haven't been able to take her for a walk since in case she runs off again.

Izzy has only recently allowed us to stroke her when she's walking past, just for a couple of seconds. These days they let her out into the garden but they've put a 16ft reinforced fence around. When I think about everything we went through for her I still can't believe it.

Izzy's story was similar to the American TV series Littlest Hobo. It ran on TV from 1979 until 1985 and was based upon a 1958 film of the same name. The long-running show followed the story of a nomadic German Shepherd dog which wandered from town to town and helped people down on their luck or in trouble.