Watch Retired Dog Help Save Terrified Pet Lost in Wilderness Overnight

A woman has shared the incredible moment she and her dog found a canine that had been missing for more than 24 hours in the wilderness.

Dog trainer and instructor Hanne Trøan lives in Trøndelag in Norway. When she saw a post on Facebook about a pup who had become lost in the mountains the day before and still hadn’t been found, the poster “immediately felt my heart burst a little, thinking about the poor Doberman being somewhere all alone in the cold, all night long.”

Empathizing with the dog’s frantic owner, and wondering how she would feel if “it was my own dog,” she decided to help in any way she could, and “decided to bring my own dogs to look for him.”

Trøan told Newsweek she first brought out her youngest canine for a search, but with no signs, she headed home and took her 10-year-old “retired” Malinois dog, Wixen, and followed a route in the forest near their home. The area had been recently left in a “complete mess” due to logging activity.

“I thought, what if he’d gotten stuck somewhere in the branches and debris?” Trøan said. At first, she and Wixen had no luck, but “out of nowhere, I heard a faint howling sound coming from deeper in the forest.”

At this point, Wixen, who “has never been trained to track other dogs, only human tracking,” dropped her toy and became intensely focused on something—it was clear she was onto something.

Trøan let her lead the way, and Wixen brought her to an area with really steep terrain, featuring several cliffs. But the dog found a route, and, after some time, “she found him.”

“He had fallen down on a cliff, unable to get anywhere,” Trøan said, adding it was obvious the lost dog had been pacing back and forth and had tried to climb up, but had “given up.”

“He was so afraid. But it seems he understood I was there to help him,” Trøan said, and after “some struggles,” she was able to get the dog down from the cliff.

The incredible story was caught on video and shared to Trøan’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, @herpawgang, on January 3, where she described it as “the most incredible experience with a dog since I started working with them.”

Viewed more than 3.9 million times on TikTok, the footage shows Trøan and Wixen tracking through the forest when the dog picks up on the scent and determinedly makes her way up the terrifyingly steep terrain—until, finally, the terrified Doberman comes into view.

An audibly emotional Trøan first praises senior dog Wixen for a job well done, before calming herself and approaching the scared lost canine as gently as possible, while also taking care not to slide down the dangerous cliff herself.

Eventually, with both dogs safely on the ground, Wixen is given back her favorite toy, and the trio make their way out of the forest, to reunite the Doberman with his frantic owner—and the video ends with a photo of the dog back home, curled up on a chair, “happy and relieved to be home again.”

TikTok users were in awe, with thousands commenting on Trøan and Wixen’s incredible rescue, with one writing: “Many thanks for saving that poor baby.”

One praised 10-year-old Wixen, writing: “To tackle such rough terrain and do her job so so well, bringing that poor scared Doberman home!”

While all dogs have incredibly sharp noses, with over 200 million scenting receptors compared to humans’ 5 million, some breeds are known for being ideal tracking dogs, according to Wag!

These breeds include the bloodhound, basset hound, beagle, and Wixen’s own breed, the Belgian Malinois.

One commenter humorously compared Wixen to their own dog, who “doesn’t even find the treat that’s laying right beside her.”

And another shared their thanks to the Doberman’s owner, writing: “Awesome the dog had a jacket on, probably helped a lot with staying warm throughout the night.”

Trøan told Newsweek the first thing the Doberman did once safely off the cliff was “pee, a lot.”

“He had been so afraid up there that he didn’t even dare to pee,” she added.

But, in the end, Trøan said: “We got out of the woods, and then reunited him with his owner, who had been so afraid. They had been looking for him in the river, fearing the worst.

“Getting him back was a moment of emotions,” Trøan added.

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