A RUNAWAY dog has been found after a search involving 100 people in two counties.

Fred the Hungarian vizsla spent five days on the run.

He escaped while on a walk with owner Andrew Simister in the Valley Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, last Monday.

Mr Simister, 40, had only collected the 18-month-old hound - a surprise tenth birthday present for his son Max - from the breeder three hours earlier.

Fred ran off when his lead became tangled on a tree.

Mr Simister spent hours searching for the dog that day, but without success.

During the next five days, the company director marshalled 100 people to search fields and woodland across lower Wharfedale, in North and West Yorkshire.

Mr Simister said: "Dog owners rallied round tremendously and we searched all over the place calling out Fred's name wherever we went, but to no avail.

"We even went back to the area where he had been bought just a few days earlier, but Fred wasn't there."

The dog eventually gave himself up to a pheasant shooting party on Saturday in fields at Farnham, near Knaresborough.

Someone contacted Mr Simister after recognising the dog from one of nearly 100 posters.

"Fred was very thin, had scratched ears and some very sore paws," said Mr Simister.

"We gave him a very light meal to start with, because he will obviously need to be built up slowly after his ordeal.

"We never told Max or his sister Georgina that Fred was missing.

"They kept asking when he would arrive.

"But we had to give the game away when we went to collect him on Saturday - they both now love him very much."