THE community of Tullibody came together to make sure a local couple were reunited with their pet chihuahua.
Scott and Louise McCutcheon set up a Facebook page to spread the word that their dog had went missing and enlisted the help of the people of Tullibody to help find Gucci.
The community responded with great enthusiasm, hunting in fields and under hedges for hours every day.
Scott said: “I’d go out and people I didn’t even know would ask if I’d found the dog. Everyone had seen it on Facebook.”
One young girl, nine-year-old, Olivia Hislop, took it upon herself to design posters and deliver them door-to-door to help with the search.
As the days wore on Scott and Louise began to lose hope of ever seeing their pet again.
Louise said: “Somebody said if she’s been out for a night a fox has probably got her. I though she was dead.”
In Cambus, not far from the couple’s home, Iona Tytler was looking after her neighbour’s chickens while they were away.
She saw Gucci, so Louise and Scott’s friend Kim Brown raced to catch her.
Kim said: “She came out from the back of the chicken’s laying box and I had to jump on her. I had to pounce to catch her.”
The couple believe Gucci had gone in after the postman and was thereafter trapped when he left and shut the gate.
Kim said: “It was actually quite good she was in there.
“If she had been out on the road she wouldn’t have had a chance.
“People could see a big dog, but you wouldn’t see a small dog like her.”
It looked like she had been sleeping in a nesting box.
Gucci was reunited with her delighted and thankful owners on Saturday, October 1 almost a week after disappearing.
Louise said: “I was in floods of tears. Scott was being all manly and didn’t cry, but I did enough for both of us.”
The pooch had lost weight and wouldn’t stop eating when she got home. Other than that she is none the worse for her six-day ordeal.
The couple say she is definitely being kept on a tight leash now.