Dog missing after ute overturned in fatal crash found alive 11 days on

A tracker using a thermal drone has found a border collie missing since a fatal crash near Hanmer Springs 11 days ago.

Hailey Palmer, her partner, and their 7-month-old daughter, Isla, were travelling in a ute and escaped mostly unhurt from the late afternoon June 2 crash.

But 3-year-old dog Ace couldn’t be found.

“Ace was on the back of our ute when the crash happened, the buckle of his collar snapped due to the force and Ace was seen running north,” Palmer said.

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The impact of the crash flipped the ute and left it teetering upside down on a length of guardrail.

The other vehicle involved in the collision was a car. The driver of the car, Patrick Honey, 20, died as a result of the crash.

The search for Ace received a boost when Don Schwass of the Nelson Search/Dog Tracking Page Facebook site joined the effort.

Schwass said he had been able to build a picture of what Ace was doing, and so on Tuesday he and Palmer had gone into the area where he expected Ace was going to be. Palmer had left a trail of her scent, along with family members’ clothes.

Then Tuesday evening, Schwass and his son Adam put up a thermal drone after dark and found a dog.

Palmer, who had gone home by then, received a call to say Ace had been found. She drove to the site to pick him up, with footage of the encounter showing the excited reunion of owner and dog.

“We’re very excited to see him back,” Palmer said on Wednesday morning.

Ace looked OK, but would be taken to the vet later in the day for a check up. “He was very excited to see his dad,” Palmer said.

The dog was hungry and thirsty, although some food had been left out for him in the area where he was found.

Schwass said he had been 3-4 days behind Ace before finding clues that enabled him to build up a picture of the dog’s movements.

Dogs tended to travel after dark, or in the early morning, and Ace had been using the state highway as a travel corridor, at one point moving 10km north. He had been eating road kill possum.

On Tuesday the wind had been right for the dog to return to an area near the crash site.

Schwass said he was hoping that because he had been at the same places as Palmer that day, Ace would pick up on his scent.

“Because I was with Hailey - I made sure I touched the stuff - he knows I’m part of it.”

Once the drone had spotted a heat signature, he approached the dog from down wind, so Ace didn’t know he was there. “It was a bit of a surprise to him,” Schwass said.

“He did growl at me. I just worked with him.”

After about 5 minutes of using the dog’s name and talking to him quietly, Ace had calmed down and he was able to put a lead on the dog.