"I left him there thinking that was the nicer of the two evils," he said.
But he quickly became lost and the downpour had washed away his motorbike's distinctive tracks, forcing him to forge on almost blindly.
"I walked through the mountains staying on the track the whole way," he said.
"Throughout all of this I could actually hear the (search) activity starting. It felt like it was about 5km away.
Andrew Nielsen, 50, was reunited with both his dog Jasper and motorbike after surviving three days in the FNQ bush. Picture: QPS
"I had water for the first day after the big rainstorm, but the water just quickly goes away," he said.