@jeanfrancoiswillem ##dog ##lostdog ##rescue ##mountain ##pet ##ireland ##lost ##dublin @ciaranolan05
♬ Surrender - Natalie Taylor
A DOG MISSING for two weeks has been returned to her owners after she was found near the top of a mountain in Wicklow.
Neesha, a Golden Retriever, was carried down Lugnaquilla in the Wicklow Mountains during poor weather conditions at the weekend.
Ciara Nolan and Jean-Francois Bonnet were walking up the mountain on Saturday when they spotted Neesha at a point near the top.
The couple posted the story of the rescue on video-sharing app TikTok where it has so far received more than 150,000 likes and over 3,000 comments.
Speaking to East Coast FM’s The Morning Show, Bonnet said the dog was “petrified” and freezing cold when they spotted her.
“It was a very bad day. It was cold, snowy, windy and the visibility wasn’t great. We were almost at the top when my girlfriend Ciara screamed ‘there is a dog, there is a dog’, and the poor thing was curled up against a rock. She was petrified, freezing cold. She didn’t have the energy to bark or stand,” he said.
“We tried to get her to walk, she couldn’t stand so we covered her in our spare clothes. We gave her some food and Ciara put her on my back and we started going down the mountain.”
He said the dog was “skin and bone” and added that she “was really shook” at that point.
They carried Neesha at first, but after falling a few times due to the poor conditions, they strapped the dog to Bonnet’s backpack using a scarf.
“We walked for about four or five hours to get back to the road and we were very happy to be there at the right time,” he said.
The dog’s owner, Erina O’Shea Goetelen, said her family had been searching for Neesha for a fortnight at that point.
“Two weeks of just absolute nightmare and worry and stress of not knowing where she was,” she told East Coast FM.
She said they were “so relieved and happy” when Neesha was found.
“It is absolutely amazing and unbelievable and we just can’t thank them enough.”
Neesha and the family’s other dog Holly, a German Shephard, had gone for a walk in the mountains when the Golden Retriever went missing.
The two dogs had been let off the lead for a period of time, and had “bolted after” a deer before they could be put back on the lead.
“My husband and two kids tried to run after them, but they were too fast,” O’Shea Goetelen said.
The next day, their other dog Holly was found but Neesha was still nowhere to be seen.
O’Shea Goetelen said the Golden Retriever is “doing well, wagging her tail here now” but is not quite ready to go back out for walks.
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