Thanks to Helen and Pete who alerted us to the Cornwall dog found safely in Eastern Scotland after 6 months story, and to Yvonne, who emailed with a story of a London dog lost for 2 years, both now very happily reunited with their owners thanks to their microchips. That's cheered us up. So today we placed another advert in the Veterinary Times (national weekly journal, read by vets and their nurses) which will appear next Tuesday.
My parents are over from the USA at the moment and house-hunting. They looked at a property 5 miles from here yesterday and mentioned their daughter losing a dog in conversation, to which the lady immediately replied "you don't mean Sky, do you?". Really reassuring to know that awareness is still out there. I went for an out-patient's appointment last week in Leicester, 10 miles away, and the receptionist who I barely recognised, said "no news on your dog?". I guess that's why we've now got it in our heads that he must be out of area. Probably esconced on someone's sofa, munching bananas, like Lord of the Manor.
Our hens are laying more eggs than we can keep up with. Eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner at the moment! They look so happy, pecking and exploring the new outside world. We have to keep the poor little things in when it's sunny, so they don't burn where they've lost so many feathers in their battery cages. The ducks aren't too phased - just being a bit snobby at the moment.
We have annual leave at the moment and are staying home (for once). It's odd pottering around without Sky - still. Tim accidentally clicked on a photo on the computer last night, of the last one we took of him at the end of November. Hmmm........ I slept on a very wet pillow last night.
Never mind - maybe next Tuesday's advert will bring some news. You never know. Fingers crossed, gang!
Monday 29 June 2009
Sunday 21 June 2009
Happy hens
Hello Bloggers.
Since the last posting we've only had 2 phone calls. One was Rocky, the black lab we caught and returned home one day - out for another wander in exactly the same area. At least that was easy to pin down. The other from an author publishing a book about dogs that go missing. He wanted to meet up to interview us and sounded harmless enough and is going to call back tomorrow (I was in a meeting at the time he called) but after Jon & Shelley's experience we certainly wouldn't meet him at home, and will be cagey about any personal details if we do decide to meet up.
Since Sky went missing I've found a need to care for something (obviously Tim doesn't count ;-) ) so a month ago I found myself inheriting 3 male calling ducks. Then I discovered the Battery Hens Welfare Trust and to cut a long story short Tim and I and our friend Pat found ourselves picking up 5 hens near Coventry yesterday. They are rescued from certain slaughter because their egg production has gone below 1 per day, even though they are only 17 months old and have another few years left in them. They're in a very sorry state, with pecked feathers, droopy combs, weak legs, and are totally bewildered at seeing daylight or being able to walk. One of them is skeletal in terms of feather loss. Quite upsetting.
Apparently within 2-4 weeks they'll be transformed and confident.
While we were there a man saw the missing Sky poster in our Jeep and said "haven't you found him yet?". He came from Ashby de la Zouch, 40 miles from where we were, and 10 miles from our home, but knew all about Sky. That was nice.
Seeing another Jeep Cherokee with a happy dog in the back on Friday evening driving home from a very hard week's work wasn't so nice, and set me off crying again.......
But the Ashby man said he knew a dog who had been stolen then returned many months later when a vet scanned his chip, so we live in hope still, and may put another advert in the Veterinary Times.
Anyway, the BHWT is an amazing organisation of volunteers who rescue these hens and if any of you are interested the website is http://www.bhwt.org.uk/
If you can't look after any hens, please do visit the website and let it persuade you never to buy eggs which aren't free range - if you still do.
One of my girls laid an egg on the way home, which I had for breakfast this morning. I was dead chuffed!
Thanks to Helen for the offer of company for July's fitness campaign. Please phone or text on the numbers at the top of the blog, and we can link up. If anyone else wants to join in with some walks please contact us. Thanks. Ffion.
Since the last posting we've only had 2 phone calls. One was Rocky, the black lab we caught and returned home one day - out for another wander in exactly the same area. At least that was easy to pin down. The other from an author publishing a book about dogs that go missing. He wanted to meet up to interview us and sounded harmless enough and is going to call back tomorrow (I was in a meeting at the time he called) but after Jon & Shelley's experience we certainly wouldn't meet him at home, and will be cagey about any personal details if we do decide to meet up.
Since Sky went missing I've found a need to care for something (obviously Tim doesn't count ;-) ) so a month ago I found myself inheriting 3 male calling ducks. Then I discovered the Battery Hens Welfare Trust and to cut a long story short Tim and I and our friend Pat found ourselves picking up 5 hens near Coventry yesterday. They are rescued from certain slaughter because their egg production has gone below 1 per day, even though they are only 17 months old and have another few years left in them. They're in a very sorry state, with pecked feathers, droopy combs, weak legs, and are totally bewildered at seeing daylight or being able to walk. One of them is skeletal in terms of feather loss. Quite upsetting.
Apparently within 2-4 weeks they'll be transformed and confident.
While we were there a man saw the missing Sky poster in our Jeep and said "haven't you found him yet?". He came from Ashby de la Zouch, 40 miles from where we were, and 10 miles from our home, but knew all about Sky. That was nice.
Seeing another Jeep Cherokee with a happy dog in the back on Friday evening driving home from a very hard week's work wasn't so nice, and set me off crying again.......
But the Ashby man said he knew a dog who had been stolen then returned many months later when a vet scanned his chip, so we live in hope still, and may put another advert in the Veterinary Times.
Anyway, the BHWT is an amazing organisation of volunteers who rescue these hens and if any of you are interested the website is http://www.bhwt.org.uk/
If you can't look after any hens, please do visit the website and let it persuade you never to buy eggs which aren't free range - if you still do.
One of my girls laid an egg on the way home, which I had for breakfast this morning. I was dead chuffed!
Thanks to Helen for the offer of company for July's fitness campaign. Please phone or text on the numbers at the top of the blog, and we can link up. If anyone else wants to join in with some walks please contact us. Thanks. Ffion.
Friday 5 June 2009
July fitness campaign
Well, we've had absolutely no phone calls of any kind since the Osbaston House Farm episode 6 weeks ago. However we've had times like this before, and as Rachel said in her comment for our last posting (and as many people are also saying) - if it is him in that area, it's close enough to home that yes we could have that magical moment when a black hairy bullet just charges at us through the gates. Oh, what a dream moment that would be..........
My Sky Army Stalwart Tori is back from some time in the Meditteranean but like me, has a punishing schedule of work for June and we'll be entrenched behind our laptops all hours of the day and night. I'm at the end of a mega educational video project for the Department of Health and have square eyes right now.
We've decided that July will therefore be spent trawling the footpaths of that area, keeping watch and laying sent, and getting fit again! Tim has made a Heath Robinson device of my empty Highlands Spring water bottles, through which he puts intravenous drip tubing (no of course it's not nicked from work, how could you ever think that?), which drips water from the bottle which contains the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag, which apparently smells of home.
Yes OK we'll look like Ghostbusters and may have to answer a few questions from a few police officers but it will be lovely getting out into the countryside and feeling that we're doing something.
Talking of police officers, poor Jon & Shelley have at least been put out of their misery about mysery Welwyn Garden City dog which "a nice lady" thought was their dog Jacob (see posts below for their website). The nice lady is a career fraudster and has many other frauds on the go, and is currently living at Her Majesty's Pleasure while the police decide how many things they might be able to charge her with.
People lead such sad lives that instead of trying to use spare time to help others, they have to twist it in this way. All that wasted time and emotion for Jon & Shelley gets me angry on their behalf. We've only had 3 fraudulent calls, all of which were pretty sorted within a couple of hours and that was bad enough.
Anyway, back to being positive. If anyone wants to join the fitness campaign for July, just shout! It's lovely countryside and much nicer to gabble along with someone than trudge miserably thinking about my little boy.
Ffion
My Sky Army Stalwart Tori is back from some time in the Meditteranean but like me, has a punishing schedule of work for June and we'll be entrenched behind our laptops all hours of the day and night. I'm at the end of a mega educational video project for the Department of Health and have square eyes right now.
We've decided that July will therefore be spent trawling the footpaths of that area, keeping watch and laying sent, and getting fit again! Tim has made a Heath Robinson device of my empty Highlands Spring water bottles, through which he puts intravenous drip tubing (no of course it's not nicked from work, how could you ever think that?), which drips water from the bottle which contains the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag, which apparently smells of home.
Yes OK we'll look like Ghostbusters and may have to answer a few questions from a few police officers but it will be lovely getting out into the countryside and feeling that we're doing something.
Talking of police officers, poor Jon & Shelley have at least been put out of their misery about mysery Welwyn Garden City dog which "a nice lady" thought was their dog Jacob (see posts below for their website). The nice lady is a career fraudster and has many other frauds on the go, and is currently living at Her Majesty's Pleasure while the police decide how many things they might be able to charge her with.
People lead such sad lives that instead of trying to use spare time to help others, they have to twist it in this way. All that wasted time and emotion for Jon & Shelley gets me angry on their behalf. We've only had 3 fraudulent calls, all of which were pretty sorted within a couple of hours and that was bad enough.
Anyway, back to being positive. If anyone wants to join the fitness campaign for July, just shout! It's lovely countryside and much nicer to gabble along with someone than trudge miserably thinking about my little boy.
Ffion
Monday 1 June 2009
6 months on
We cannot believe that we are six months to the day since Sky went missing. It seems so odd that we were walking the paths wrapped up and sitting out at night in temperatures of minus 10, yet now we are walking in hot sunshine in a t-shirt with skylarks singing and the oats growing waist high in what used to be a frozen muddy field.
We are still laying the scent trail home ever 3 or 4 days. The route that we are scenting cuts right between the two main areas of sightings (the Lount and the Green Lane). Any dog moving between these two areas has to cross our scented path. It main be a faint chance, but at least this makes us feel as we are doing something.
There have been no more sightings since our last post. We think that everyone around the area knows about Sky, so we are just waiting and still keeping fingers crossed.
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