Nil points at Hamilton

Happy 2010 dear bloggers
After the Watermead episode Ffion started obsessing about the phone call from nearby Hamilton last February, where a man described a black dog with a scar on the housing estate. So on Sunday, 2 weeks ago, we set off, armed with the usual flyers and posters (with the extra sentence mentioning a possible local connection, to get attention).
Tesco Extra doesn't do community noticeboards but the nice lady in Tesco's petrol station said she was "not supposed to", but she'd "put the poster up", with a friendly smile! Don't know how long that one lasted before the boss caught on...
In the Hamilton estate, which is a bit surreal - one of these new builds with quite fancy looking houses and "middle class" vibes emanating from the company car on each drive, we found a Sainsbury's 7 - 11 and put a poster up there. We put a flyer through the new-build primary school too. However, never have I seen such a dog-free zone. I know it was icy but there was only ONE dog walker out in half an hour of kerb crawling. When quizzed, he retreated (Ffion's vivid imagination judging him to have something to hide, but Tim's logical mind refuting this and declaring him a normal person), saying he didn't know anything. Not- "but I'll keep an eye out" etc - hmmmphh. The estate is heavily Southeast Asian (40% of Leicester's population) and they're not doggy people.
So here we are, 2 weeks on, and not a whisper. Nor anything from our scouts in Watermead Park. Today I took the poster down from our window onto the lane, 13 months on. That was a sad moment. Within our village Tori and Guy, and Ali and Esmond are still displaying theirs in their windows, our loyal supporters. I shall mention it next time I see them.
Tim's dad died this week. Tim is cheering himself up with amazing footage from 2 of our nesting boxes. He has infra-red cameras in an owl box, where a kestrel is in residence (!) and a blue tit box, where a little blue tit sits at night plumping up his feathers like one of those crazy puffer fish who can go spherical. Although we'd prefer to see Mrs Barn Owl in her box, we are still hoping for positive pregnancy tests all round.
Anyone got any advice for husbands addicted to their laptop while in bed, viewing 'other birds' ??