LOST English Dog Pas-de-Calais

[Christine Animal]

Twelve year old Ernie went missing from his English owners' house on the evening of 14th February at Blangermont, area Saint Pol, Frevent, Hesdin in the 62 Pas-de-Calais.  He was taken in soon after by someone near Nuncq, but he ran away again.

He had a collar with a London telephone number on it.  The prefix is out of date, but the number is OK. He has a British microchip

number 958 000 000 00 1370.

The owners do not live in France permanently, but while they are here Cheryl Kennedy can be contacted on her English mobile 00 44 7957 46 23 73.  If you are in that area, please keep an eye out for Ernie or anyone who might have taken him in or to a refuge, etc.

Many thanks.

                                

 

[Christine Animal]

I received a message last night from Cheryl that they found Ernie on Sunday, 19th February!  Will know the details soon...

 

[WJT]

Great news Christine.  They must have been worried sick, I know I would have been if it was one of mine, particularly at that age. Nice to hear good news for a change about a dog in France.

[Christine Animal]

I have received the following from Cheryl and Jasper Kennedy who finally managed to retrieve Ernie just an hour and a half  before they had to leave to return to England.  I think I shall also post this under the sticky What To Do If You Lose Your Pet In France.

Dear Christine,
Sorry this has taken a while to compose but I hope
this info might help somebody.I can't seem to get it
on to the site myself & hoped you might be able to put
it out.Once again I would like to thank you for all
your kind help & support when we needed it.
love Cheryl & Jasper.


FINDING A DOG

We would like to thank everyone who helped and
supported us in finding our dog Ernie.
We thought we would explain what we did and hopefully
this will help others in a similar situation.
We lost our dog late one night in a small village near
St Pol sur Ternoise. We are surrounded by as many as
forty other villages. In between are vast areas of
fields. It was hard not to panic once the dog had not
returned after 24 hours. He could have been anywhere
and was most likely disorientated.
Our first job was to contact all the near neighbours.
They were very supportive and gave a great deal of
helpful information. From this we did the following:

1 We were lucky to have the passport photo of Ernie
and were able to make up a poster and copy it in the
Maison de la Presse.
2 We were lucky to find a local lady who dedicates
herself to the care of all rescue animals.
3 We were allowed to put out a notice on Europe 2 the
local radio station.
4 We put a petite annonce in the local press.
5 We discovered of course this website and put
notices and description out on the net.
6 We contacted all the local vets; this got us our
first useful lead and a sighting of Ernie in a village
some 10 kms away.
7 We informed all the Mairies in the area and
Gendarmeries mostly by leaving our poster, but in a
number of cases we were able to entrust the
information to someone who said they would bring it up
at the next meeting.
8 We contacted the French RSPCA called SPA and they
gave us more information on refuges in the area.
9 We put posters on nearly every village notice board
(some are metal, take blue tack as well as drawing
pins) and also in cafes, bottle banks, supermarkets,
garages and newsagents. In fact any shop that would
take them. Whenever we could, we tried to start a
converstion about our "chien perdu". The reaction was
generally very sympathetic.
10 Also postmen and women were very helpful.
11 We put our mobile and home number on the poster but
the most crucial was a local number of a French
friend in the village which we drew attention to on
the poster. As it was recognizable as a French number
people were much less likely to be intimidated by it
than by the 00 44 code.

In the end our dog was taken in by a family 3 villages
away after four nights and days on the loose. They
made contact with our French friends the next day and
he was able to drop our dog back to us when we were
just on the point of having to return home in despair.

I would like to thank all the French families who helped us
and we now realise that the French like dogs as much
as we English. It takes a bit of finding but there is
a real network of refuges, kennels, vets and dog
lovers who will really put themselves out to help in
our area and I'm sure in other parts of France. We
also have to thank a number of hunters who also have a
great fondness for dogs.
Hope this might help.

Cheryl and Jasper.

 

[Opalienne]

That's a great story and I am very happy for them.   Just to underline the point about hunters, our cat was missing for 3.5 months and we had completely given up hope.   Then one morning the garde de chasse rang the doorbell holding a sack and saying "I have a surprise for you".   We at first assumed that she was dead, but then the sack started moving and yowling!   He had found her in a trap and brought her straight back.   She was very scared but quite unhurt.

We were surprised, knowing the reputation of hunters for disliking cats (in our village it is rumoured that they are sometimes shot by trigger happy hunters).   But he said that he loved animals and had been very upset to hear that we had lost ours.

Incidentally, another useful method of spreading the search is to get a leaflet printed and have it delivered with the local freesheet.   We did this, and then made another 'thank you' note to be delivered in the same way.  It was very effective, judging from the number of comments we had about it.

[Christine Animal]

Thanks Opalienne, those are very useful hints.  If you had not given the loss of your cat such publicity, you would never have got her back and these two stories do show that there are some hunters, probably the real ones, who care for animals.

The printed leaflet delivered with the local freesheet is a marvellous idea and then the "thank you" in the same way which lets everyone know the pet has been found even if they still see the posters about.