Combat Stance and Unhitching

[Artyom15]

I read on the Wiki that a hitch keeps an animal from despawning, and that an animal left for 5+ hours in combat stance will despawn. When does an animal unhitch? When it enters combat stance, or when you punch the fucker into submission? I want to know because I am keeping an... extremely close eye on my Mouflons just incase they unhitch when they go into combat stance.

[cyrus9586]

you have 5 hours from when they take stance. After that they will despawn unless you beat them into submission. After that rehitch them.

[MusicWarrior]

They don't despawn. They just break the leash and start wandering around, afterwards maybe they despawn. Pretty sure about that, because I experimented with a bit.