FOLK in Four Marks and Medstead joined an exciting search this week to find a delightful little prairie dog which answers to the name of Rupert.

Something of an escape artist, Rupert disappeared from his home in Four Marks on Monday morning and owner Laura Miranda Dawson posted of her loss on Facebook, asking people to keep a watchful eye out - and they did!

Shelley Gorys was sitting in her garden at lunchtime on Tuesday when she did a triple take as there, on the lawn, sitting on his haunches and making direct eye contact, was the missing prairie dog.

Shelley said: “I couldn’t take it in at first. He was very bold and really quick.”

The animal stayed for around an hour, during which time he made friends with her own pets - a cat and a dog. It wasn’t until later that she found out, via social media, that he had escaped.

In the event, he was spotted in the region of Five Ash crossroads and Lymington Bottom Road, across the border in neighbouring Medstead. According to Laura, he was about a mile away from home and had found a concrete tunnel under the road in which to hide.

After that Laura, a friend and kind passersby, spent about 40 minutes chasing Rupert around a corn field as he “athletically leaped and dived past” them “like a hare!”.

Drenched in sweat, covered in burs and completely exhausted, they eventually managed to catch the cheeky escapee.

Laura has since expressed thanks to all who helped find and retrieve her AWOL prairie dog.

n Prairie dogs are not dogs at all but small, brown ground squirrels, the size of a guinea pig, who sit up on their haunches like meerkats. Their normal habitat is the prairies and dry grasslands of northern Arizona, northern New Mexico and south-west Colorado in the United States.