The last thing you need on New Year's Eve is for a dog to go missing.

I found him in the end after calling for half an hour and walking about a mile along the muddy lane, feeble torchlight in the pitch darkness.

Although the house is isolated, fireworks seem to echo around the house even if they are let off three or four miles away.  Rockets have been exploding every ten minutes or so since about 7pm, and I think it was the noise that made him run off when I took the dogs in the garden (I didn't see him run off, I was too concerned with the little dog).  Anyway, I am keeping them in now until well past midnight, no matter how urgently they ask to go out.