Frantic Alan spent the day searching for Mitzi and for the next two days, he scoured the woods.
But with no sign of Mitzi, the 49-year-old feared his beloved dog had been savaged by another animal.
Then one morning, he got a call from a dog walker whose pet had been sniffing around a fox hole in the woods.
Alan rushed to the area and once he got there, he heard a faint whimper coming from the ground.
He told Essex Live: "I needed shovels, the lady who called me kindly gave me one and I started digging.
"Then people started turning up to help, it was amazing."
Lying on the ground, he reached into the rabbit hole as he coaxed Mitzi from her hiding place.
Alan shared a video of the emotional moment he was reunited with his pet on Facebook.
In the clip, he broke down in tears as he clutched a visibly shaken Mitzi in his arms.
He captioned the sweet video: “Ever seen a grown man cry?”
The 50-second footage has since gone viral, after comments flooded in from Facebook users.
Alan said: “I just broke down, I was overwhelmed with joy and disbelief, I had started to lose hope.
"It was like a Christmas miracle, all the time it felt like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.”
