The 3-year-old pure-bred was accompanying his owner, Scott Cooper (21), a stockman for Criffel Station, on a routine job loading deer on to an Upper Clutha Transport truck bound for Otago Venison in Dunedin on Wednesday when things went awry.
"He must have been in the [work] truck and I left the window open," Mr Cooper said.
Next thing, the transport truck was gone ... and so was Grizz.
"He normally doesn't leave my side; he would have been trying to help me out."
Mr Cooper contacted the local radio station and dog pound and just as panic was starting to set in, a call came through from Upper Clutha Transport driver Neville Miller.
"He said 'You're not missing your wee dog, are you?' And I said 'Well, as a matter of fact, I am."'
A "shaken up" Grizz had dismounted the truck in Dunedin along with his 150 new, much larger, travelling companions and fled hastily from the scene.
Mr Cooper was preparing to get in his car to drive to Dunedin to recapture Grizz when word came through the stowaway pooch was safely back in the truck - now minus the deer - and on his way back to Wanaka again.
"He cost me a box of beer," Mr Cooper said, referring to the payment he gave for his pet's passage home.
Despite the dog's ordeal, their reunion was a low-key affair, as a relaxed Grizz "jumped out of the back of the truck like nothing had ever happened".
Grizz's unscheduled journey south shut inside one of the pens of 12 deer could easily have had a far less happy ending, Mr Cooper said.
"They were yearling deer. If they had been old hinds or stags, they would have killed him without a doubt.
"He would have been dodging hooves the whole way down there."
While Grizz was "a bit sore" from bruising after his adventure, he was "straight back" into life on the station alongside Mr Cooper.
"He's my main man ... he's a mate more than anything."
