Well London was uneventful, Sky-wise but on Saturday as we were walking down a hotel corridor in Worthing at 9.30pm (during another emergency trip because Tim's dad has been quite ill all summer), starving hungry, wanting to go straight out to find food, the phone goes with another Sky-related call. Like buses, things go in threes.
A kind lady from Ibstock saw our poster in the Co-op a few months ago and has been thinking about us, having lost their Staffs bull terrier in January, for which they blame the gypsies. Her husband was on the social community website Gumtree.com on Saturday evening while she was in work and saw an advert from a family north of Hinckley (not that far south from here, in the direction of the potential sighting the evening Sky disappeared), to say they'd found a black lab months ago, been looking after it, but decided they couldn't any longer. Hearts in mouths, we let ourselves into the hotel room, scrabbled for a pen and paper, then located Tim's laptop and dongle for Internet access, logged on to Gumtree, and discovered it was a female named Jess, found on 13th October, 6 weeks before Sky went missing.
I emailed the family to check they'd got the dog scanned for a microchip in case the owners were as distraught as us. They had and she has no chip. THey'd done a limited amount of local publicity but to no avail. Moral of the story is to chip your dog.
I will reply back to make sure they've checked doglost.com.
It's just the sort of story we imagine might have happened to Sky - but either the chip didn't read, or they didn't even try.
Another nil points. Another going round of scenarios in your head.
Still, any phone calls are better than silence. Maybe one day it'll be The One.
Monday, 21 September 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Deja vu
Phone call today from nice local man at 1.15pm today who said "I think I've just seen your dog!"
He knew all about Sky - plus the timid behaviour of the much-spotted black lab, so was a reliable informant.
The sighting was in one of the "favourite" places - in a field near Pete & Bren's house, just off the Barton Lane (perpendicular to Green Lane, on the Lount side). He said it was pottering around nonchanlantly and he watched it for a while expecting to see an owner, but then the dog saw a tractor in the field which seemed to trigger him to run off to (what we call) the Tori and Ffion copse (being so often patrolled by us after being seen running off in that direction many times before and with it having nice pheasant feeders and dens and running water). It was the running away scared behaviour that particularly interested him - as he said, a farm dog won't behave like that.
I rang Digger's mum and after his recent escapades he was firmly locked in the kitchen!
So off we set in the cheeky Jeepy - glad that we were on leave and both at home (rare event). Tim drove "the circuit" while I walked diagonally through that area.
Nothing. As usual.
Tim is currently (at dusk!) laying a scent trail. He is a bit haunted by a neighbour saying she saw a black dog at 03.00 back in May, in the grounds of Osbaston Hall. That's where Tim had been scenting as far as, back in those days, but stopped just there on the basis that that's just the opposite side of our village. Having said that we didn't often go down that end so Tim's been obsessed about this ever since. Tonight he'll scent all the way up the lane (another half mile) to home.
What does this mean today? We don't know.
The corn fields and high grass are now being cut, so there's visibility across fields which there hasn't been since May.
We still have posters up in the area and local people still have a good awareness, we think.
Dogs do move territories then come back. The triangular territories they inhabit are up to 15 miles wide.
We're going to London early tomorrow morning to a conference. I'll be back late Thurs night and Tim's not back till Saturday afternoon. I can just feel it in my bones that the minute I arrive at Imperial College, the mobile will go...................
He knew all about Sky - plus the timid behaviour of the much-spotted black lab, so was a reliable informant.
The sighting was in one of the "favourite" places - in a field near Pete & Bren's house, just off the Barton Lane (perpendicular to Green Lane, on the Lount side). He said it was pottering around nonchanlantly and he watched it for a while expecting to see an owner, but then the dog saw a tractor in the field which seemed to trigger him to run off to (what we call) the Tori and Ffion copse (being so often patrolled by us after being seen running off in that direction many times before and with it having nice pheasant feeders and dens and running water). It was the running away scared behaviour that particularly interested him - as he said, a farm dog won't behave like that.
I rang Digger's mum and after his recent escapades he was firmly locked in the kitchen!
So off we set in the cheeky Jeepy - glad that we were on leave and both at home (rare event). Tim drove "the circuit" while I walked diagonally through that area.
Nothing. As usual.
Tim is currently (at dusk!) laying a scent trail. He is a bit haunted by a neighbour saying she saw a black dog at 03.00 back in May, in the grounds of Osbaston Hall. That's where Tim had been scenting as far as, back in those days, but stopped just there on the basis that that's just the opposite side of our village. Having said that we didn't often go down that end so Tim's been obsessed about this ever since. Tonight he'll scent all the way up the lane (another half mile) to home.
What does this mean today? We don't know.
The corn fields and high grass are now being cut, so there's visibility across fields which there hasn't been since May.
We still have posters up in the area and local people still have a good awareness, we think.
Dogs do move territories then come back. The triangular territories they inhabit are up to 15 miles wide.
We're going to London early tomorrow morning to a conference. I'll be back late Thurs night and Tim's not back till Saturday afternoon. I can just feel it in my bones that the minute I arrive at Imperial College, the mobile will go...................
Monday, 14 September 2009
The Lount explained?
Deep in the South of France, on a canal boat, going through a double lock, I hear the beep of my mobile with a text call. It's last Thursday and Pete Childs has just found a wandering black lab whom he was pretty confident wasn't Sky as there was no scar and the dog jumped onto the front seat of his car with confidence, but Pete was on his way to the local vet's to see if he could be ID'd by a chip - as he was wearing no collar. He was ID'd and is Digger, who belongs to a farm near the Lount. He's just been brought to the vet's again this morning, on another wander to a farm in Market Bosworth.
This sort of information helps - his owners have been very helpful to us in the past but didn't imply he was this much of a wanderer. It makes all the sightings in that area seem likely to be him.
The Green Lane is about a mile away, so that's less certain but of course quite possible.
The Helpout Mill is considerably further away.
A lot of our calls have described a dog who's always running and won't turn to a person's voice though, and by contrast Digger by all accounts is very friendly and is generally just nosing around.
This information makes me bipolar. I'm mainly glad we can make more sense of things, but it also diminishes the hope that the sightings were Sky. Having said that I think we're reaching the stage of acceptance that Shelley and Jon describe in their latest posting http://missingbraccojacob.blogspot.com/
I could have written every word Shelley has said. Our thoughts are identical. There's no point in repeating them here, but as I watched black labrador's gambling in and out of the Canal du Midi in France, remembering Sky doing the same on the Ashby canal here, I felt deep down like we'd never see him again.
Like J&S, we know from our knowledge of farmers and shooting parties that it's highly unlikely he would have been lying dead somewhere but unfound. So where is he? Who's got him? The lack of closure prevents you fully accepting you'll never see him again.
We'd planned to do this trip with Sky so I knew the first day or two would be tough. I actually only had one unstable moment which took me a bit by surprise but shouldn't have as it was identical to the one when I was at work, when I petted the blind man's black lab. There was a lab in a restaurant one lunchtime, whose owners were happy for me to fuss, and behaved exactly like Sky enjoying all the certain kinds of scratches and strokes and reacting the same way. Luckily we were sitting at a table in the corner and I was facing out to the canal, so when I stood up and went back to my seat, sat down and burst into tears, no-one saw except Tim. Who swallowed hard, couldn't say anything as he filled up too, and gulped some rose wine (which finally worked on me after a while!)
Having said all that we had a fabulous, relaxing holiday; slept tons; enjoyed pottering at 4 kph in our narrowboat called St Chinian; cycled through vineyards; ate lots of fromage de chevre, baguettes and cassoulet; and with plenty of flights from East Midlands airport have said we'll do a few weekends in France over coming months while we don't have the responsibility of a dog.
The chickens seem pleased to see me - judging by the fact I've just had to chase 3 of them out of the kitchen, and our friend Pat has done a great job of babysitting them and the ducks while we were away. Thanks Pat!
This sort of information helps - his owners have been very helpful to us in the past but didn't imply he was this much of a wanderer. It makes all the sightings in that area seem likely to be him.
The Green Lane is about a mile away, so that's less certain but of course quite possible.
The Helpout Mill is considerably further away.
A lot of our calls have described a dog who's always running and won't turn to a person's voice though, and by contrast Digger by all accounts is very friendly and is generally just nosing around.
This information makes me bipolar. I'm mainly glad we can make more sense of things, but it also diminishes the hope that the sightings were Sky. Having said that I think we're reaching the stage of acceptance that Shelley and Jon describe in their latest posting http://missingbraccojacob.blogspot.com/
I could have written every word Shelley has said. Our thoughts are identical. There's no point in repeating them here, but as I watched black labrador's gambling in and out of the Canal du Midi in France, remembering Sky doing the same on the Ashby canal here, I felt deep down like we'd never see him again.
Like J&S, we know from our knowledge of farmers and shooting parties that it's highly unlikely he would have been lying dead somewhere but unfound. So where is he? Who's got him? The lack of closure prevents you fully accepting you'll never see him again.
We'd planned to do this trip with Sky so I knew the first day or two would be tough. I actually only had one unstable moment which took me a bit by surprise but shouldn't have as it was identical to the one when I was at work, when I petted the blind man's black lab. There was a lab in a restaurant one lunchtime, whose owners were happy for me to fuss, and behaved exactly like Sky enjoying all the certain kinds of scratches and strokes and reacting the same way. Luckily we were sitting at a table in the corner and I was facing out to the canal, so when I stood up and went back to my seat, sat down and burst into tears, no-one saw except Tim. Who swallowed hard, couldn't say anything as he filled up too, and gulped some rose wine (which finally worked on me after a while!)
Having said all that we had a fabulous, relaxing holiday; slept tons; enjoyed pottering at 4 kph in our narrowboat called St Chinian; cycled through vineyards; ate lots of fromage de chevre, baguettes and cassoulet; and with plenty of flights from East Midlands airport have said we'll do a few weekends in France over coming months while we don't have the responsibility of a dog.
The chickens seem pleased to see me - judging by the fact I've just had to chase 3 of them out of the kitchen, and our friend Pat has done a great job of babysitting them and the ducks while we were away. Thanks Pat!
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