AN 11-year-old dog braved severe winter weather conditions, spending four weeks in the Cotswold countryside in temperatures as low as -6 °C, after disappearing chasing a rabbit.

Oscar, a Jack Russell Terrier, was found on Saturday, wandering at the side of the road in Fairford, having lost a lot of weight, with vets believing he had been trapped in a rabbit hole.

Martina Eyre-Brook, Cirencester Vets4Pets practice owner, who treated him, said Oscar was ‘malnourished, with overgrown claws, sunken eyes and parasites’.

“On inspection, we all had tears in our eyes,” she said.

“He looked so sad, but when we offered him his first meal his little tail started wagging and some energy returned to his little anorexic and hypothermic body.”

Martina said “judging by Oscar’s appearance” she believes he was “stuck in a rabbit hole for four weeks until he lost so much weight that he was able to free himself.”

Oscar’s owner Sylvia Dean, 28, and her mum Tina, from Swindon, had frantically been searching for him, starting a social media campaign, as well as contacting all vets and farmers in the area, with no luck.

“I was out on a walk with Oscar and my other dogs,” said Tina. “We were walking the perimeter of the horse field in Whelford where I work.

“He knows the area well but he got onto a rabbit and he was off.”

She said she walked ‘up and down’ the area ‘for days’ afterwards trying to find him, but had almost given up hope when Martina called to say he had been found.

“We thought he was dead,” she admitted.

“He’s run off before, about three years ago, and we found him a couple of weeks later,” said Tina, who said she had ‘never seen a dog so skinny’ when she went to pick him up on Saturday.

“He couldn’t stand up. You could see every bone in his body, and he was a muscular, stocky dog.”

When all hope seemed lost, Oscar was spotted in Fairford by a resident called Emily on Saturday morning, who told Martina she saw Oscar limping along the side of the road and brought him to the vets.

Martina said: “We gave him pain relief and further medical treatment and checked if he was microchipped. He was.”

Tina said: “We can’t thank her [Emily] enough. Apparently, Oscar was just walking along the road and cars were swerving to avoid him, but none thought to stop and help him.”

She said, Oscar, who was adopted by the family at six weeks old, is currently being fed every two hours to keep his strength up.