This morning, I took Charlie and Oscar for an early walk, taking advantage of the cooler weather at 7:00 am, in advance of my trip to the airfield. I chose a pleasant path above the village of Bevons, for a 90-minute return trip to the pas d'Essaillon which overlooks Ribiers. 

Half-way down on the return leg, we were passed by a mountain biker. Oscar, ahead of me and almost around the next corner of the track, was spooked and he took off. When I rounded the corner, there was no sight of him. This was not unusual behaviour for Oscar; he always reappeared after a few minutes.

After 30 minutes of fruitless searching, I called Ariane to say that Oscar was missing. She and Danielle arrived immediately and we started looking up and down the hills near the spot we last saw Oscar. After an hour or so, still no success. We went home and planned a campaign. Ariane created and printed 20 copies of a dog-missing poster. She posted the details on Facebook and contacted the vet, the police, the stray dog refuge; anyone we could think of who might help. We then drove back to the site of Oscar's disappearance, pinning up the posters as we went.

I spent the next couple of hours climbing and descending the mountainsides. It was getting hot: 35C had been forecast for the day. Bob and David kindly offered to help and drove up from the club to join us in the search. I tried all the paths that I knew Oscar had walked before, but this took many hours to complete, all without success. At 7pm I had to stop; I worked out that I had walked for about 11 hours during the day, and got through more than 6 litres of water, all lost through perspiration only.