Panicking dog-sitters feared they had lost their pooch after he leaped on to a trampoline and vaulted over a 7ft fence.

Three-year-old collie cross Ziggy was playing with the children on the trampoline at the home of dad-of-two David Sharma in Raymond Avenue, Canterbury, when he bounced over the back garden fence and disappeared.

The incident happened on Sunday morning – just two days after Great Britain won its first ever medal in the Olympic trampoline competition.

David’s 11-year-old daughter Olivia climbed into the garden of the neighbouring house to retrieve him.

“The girls were brilliant and did not panic,” said David, who owns Howfield Manor Hotel in Chartham Hatch.

“They just came to me and said ‘we’ve lost the dog’ and explained that he’d bounced off the trampoline and into the garden behind us.

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“The problem was that we didn’t actually know what road it is behind us. There are lots of small cul-de-sacs in this area so weren’t sure we’d find him that quickly.

“But when we put a ladder up and looked into the garden, we saw Ziggy just hanging around by the fence with a bemused look on his face, perhaps wondering how he’d got there.”

Ziggy was fed treats while he awaited his rescuer.

Olivia, a former Wincheap Primary School pupil who starts at the Girls’ Langton next month, then climbed into the garden to collect him.

She discovered that he was at the back of a house in Winchester Gardens behind Cromwell Road and led him back to the Sharma household unhurt.

Ziggy belongs to David’s in-laws, who live in Brighton and are on holiday.

The 49-year-old said: “I didn’t actually tell them straight away. I thought I’d leave that up to Olivia as she’s the one who lost him.”

Ziggy’s gargantuan bounce came just two days after Bryony Page, 25, won Britain’s first ever medal for the trampoline. Taking silver, she was only beaten to the gold by half a point in Rio on Friday.

David added: “The dog had been watching the Olympics with us at home and so perhaps he simply got inspired to train for the next games at Tokyo in 2020.”