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With her puppies snuggled up beside her, rescue dog Patsy looks a picture of contentment.
But the two-year-old’s introduction to parenthood was somewhat more traumatic – after she gave her new owners Christine and Leslie Reading the slip, then dragged them almost a mile through countryside, woodland and brambles to the litter she gave birth to during six weeks on the run.
Mr Reading, 74, told how he crawled on hands and knees through a bramble thicket to reach the seemingly cold and lifeless puppies – before putting them down his jumper in a bid to warm the pups up.
He was able to revive three of the four tiny puppies and the former company boss and his wife, also 74, are now planning to keep one of the pooches.
Cocker spaniel and chihuahua cross Patsy sneaked under a garden fence just 24 hours after being taken in by the Readings on March 17 – then charged towards a 12 square-mile private woodland on the other side of their Herefordshire valley.
The couple spent weeks searching for the ‘beautiful’ dog - putting up ‘missing’ posters, making Facebook appeals and delivering flyers in an eight-mile radius of their home in Yarsop, Herefordshire – until Patsy was eventually caught at a farmyard almost four miles from home.
‘By then there had been sightings in five other villages or hamlets’, Mrs Reading said. ‘But each time she was spooked she ran miles and I just couldn’t get in front of her to set a humane trap.’
Eventually the sightings started to concentrate on the farm near the hamlet of Brinsop.
Patsy and her puppies snuggled up in the arms of owner Christine Reading following her great escape
An image from a motion-sensitive camera which triggered after Patsy was finally caught after entering the trap in a barn at a farm almost four miles from home
'Patsy is a wonderful mother and thankfully all thoughts of fleeing have gone', Mrs Reading said
The farmer let Mrs Reading set up a trap with a pressure plate inside, linked to a motion-sensitive camera.
‘We caught a cat and a farm dog before the camera notification pinged again and we discovered we’d finally caught Patsy in the barn’, Mrs Reading said.
The couple thought that was the end of the drama. But two-year-old Patsy spent her first night back under the Readings' roof howling continuously in distress.
Noticing she was lactating, they took her to a vet who confirmed Patsy had very recently given birth, and the Readings realised they would have to go out searching again – this time for Patsy's litter.
Mrs Reading took Patsy back to the farm, expecting to find the puppies in an outbuilding. But Patsy, on a long lead, took off into the countryside.
As the terrain became rougher, Mrs Reading called her husband to take over.
He eventually found the four puppies cold and seemingly lifeless after Patsy dragged him almost a mile from the farm to woodland near to St George’s church at Brinsop.
‘We went a good way into the woods’, he told the Mail. ‘Then she disappeared into brambles and I had no choice but to follow as I didn’t want to let go of the lead and lose her again.
Mrs Reading said Patsy had 'settled in again and is doing well' following her adventure
Pictured in the distance, the private woodland that Patsy was seen heading towards after fleeing from the Readings' home
‘On the other side of the thorns was a great big oak tree and there by the roots were the puppies.’
Mr Reading said of the discovery on April 29: ‘I thought they were dead because they weren’t moving, but when I put them down my jumper I soon started to feel one of them wriggling.
'He ended up crawling along my sleeve and came out at the end, so I had to quickly grab him!’
The couple have decided to keep the mischievous puppy - the only black pup in the otherwise cream litter – and are considering calling him Tubs ‘because he’s a little tubby’.
Mr Reading used the What3Words app to alert friends to his location, who arrived armed with pruners to cut him out of the thicket.
The Readings, who have six children between them from previous marriages, and 19 grandchildren, took the litter straight to their local vets.
Unfortunately, one of the puppies – the smallest and a female – didn’t survive. The other three – all male - are now thriving at home, with relatives lined up to take in the remaining two puppies.
Mrs Reading, a former haulage company boss, said: ‘We took Patsy in from a woman who was renting a flat and who had been told by her landlord she couldn’t keep Patsy.
‘She settled in immediately and was running around happily in the garden. But she found a hole under the fence and bolted.
'The last I saw of her was her running towards the private wood – I think she was trying to run back home.’
Mrs Reading said the previous owner had warned the couple that the dog might have been impregnated by her chihuahua a few weeks earlier, but added: ‘she didn’t look pregnant’.
Dogs' gestation period is, on average, nine weeks, meaning Patsy must have given birth just days before she was caught.
‘I think because she had given birth it helped her to stay in one place’, Mrs Reading added.
‘Patsy is very thin but has a beautiful shine to her coat. She's settled in again and is doing well.
'We have put more wire fencing in the garden so we don’t get a repeat of her great escape!’