Featured Image Credit: National Army of Colombia / KENS 5
Topics: News, World News, Dogs
Ben Thompson
The heroic rescue dog that helped find four siblings stranded in the Amazon has gone missing.
Wilson found the four youngsters that had survived forty days in the Colombian rainforest after surviving a plane crash that had killed their mother.
During the search party for the children, Wilson broke off from the group and managed to reach them.
According to the kids' family, he played with them until the rescue team located them, and had become their 'faithful friend'.
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However, the dog disappeared into the wilderness amidst the chaos that ensued when the search party arrived.
The Belgian Shepherd had been with the kids for four days up until they were saved.
The Colombian Military have said that Operation Hope - the name given to the initial search party - is not over yet.
"We are united to recover our canine commando Wilson from the jungle and bring him back," a spokesperson said.
“The Operation Hope of the Military Forces of Colombia does not end until he is found.”
Whilst the search continues for Wilson continues, the kids he saved - Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, five, and one-year-old Cristin - continue their recovery in hospital.
The kids reportedly talked about their furry saviour when they were brought out of the wilderness.
Astrid Caceres, director of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, said that Lesly had told them 'about a dog that they had lost, that they didn't know where it went, that it had accompanied them for a while'.
The oldest sibling even drew a sketch using crayons showing the dog sat under the tree and near a river.
Next to it, she wrote his name Wilson.
And her younger sibling, Soleiny, also created a similar picture of a brown dog with black pointy ears.
Wilson's handler, Christian David Lara, is still trekking for the jungle in search for his canine companion.
The dog was last seen on 8 June, when Carlos Villegas, a member of the Civil Defense, saw him from 40 metres away.
Villegas said: "My partner tried to play with him, to activate him, to call him to see if he came towards us to catch him, but the dog got scared and went out and got lost in the jungle again."
It is believed that Wilson might have had an encounter with a dangerous predator which caused a change in his behaviour.
General Pedro Sánchez, who led Operation Hope, said in a statement to press: “According to what the children told us, we can confirm that Wilson, our commando, was with them, quite emaciated and without much to eat out there in the jungle.
“But our faith remains intact and we are still looking for him.”