Where are you Jacob ?

This blog is dedicated purely to keeping both ourselves and other people kind enough to care, updated about the search for Jacob, our missing Bracco Italiano.
Jacob went missing on the morning of 21st January 2009.

I guess in this, my very first post, there will be lots to catch up on.
These past 3 weeks have been something of a blur for Jon and I.
There have been some incredible highs when a call came through to say he had been sighted, and despairing lows when they sadly came to nothing.
People who have gone through this missing dog scenario tell you that it is one huge and bumpy rollercoaster, one where the ride is free, you just pay with your heart until it's time to jump off......They are not wrong.

In order for me to update this blog to be absolutely current, I will summarise from the very beginning.

Jacob went missing from the back of the woods near to where we live.
This area is CB11 4XB - Littlebury Green, Saffron Walden, Essex.
A rural area, a hamlet village, for the most part open farmland surrounds us on all sides.
Jacob knows the area as we are lucky enough to live this rurally, and he gets a good walk in the immediate area he was lost each and every day.
He has gone missing for a few hours here and there in the past, (that nose of his sure does get some neat smells!) but always he has been found, or at the very least, has come home after a good few hours to himself.
I have to say he has never ever disappeared off the face of the earth before, which i'm afraid to say seems to what's happening here.
I'm not one to query David Bowie's perceptions about "is there life on Mars?" but if Jacob is as elusive and Houdiniesque as he's proving to be, I may well be forced to reconsider his apparent alien abduction !

So, we'll start at the beginning, and to the 21st Jan, the day Jacob ran off happily playing within a pack of deer, Jon was hot on his heels but sadly lost sight as the herd and Jacob crossed into fields and wooded area at some speed.
The whole of that day and night, friends and us alike, spend hours and hours looking for him, returning home at 3am after scouring the area.
I have to say we were convinced then that we would hear a familiar Bracco wail in the early hours simply to say, "okay guys, adventure over, i'm home, where's the duvet ?"
Sadly this was not to be.
Jacob was posted on Doglost, and the fabulous Jo, is still ever helpful offering advice and encouragement that yes we can find him and all be reunited.

For the next 5 days Jon and I alongside a team of friends, doggie friends and family scoured the areas we thought he could be in.
We bought a night vision monocular to enable us to search in the dead of night, and left more wee trails than can be possibly decent for health and safety limitations.
Still nothing.
We found it hard to sleep, hard to eat, and more than anything found it hard to comprehend where the hell our dog had disappeared to ?
Dogs just don't disappear like this do they ?
Sadly, after looking at the lost dogs on websites such as Doglost, it seems that unfortunately it's just a common occurrence, and you wouldn't necessarily know about them, unless you became a 'dog missing' victim yourself.

The one thing I have to say here, is the absolute mind boggling amount of help and advice, time and effort all of our friends, e-friends and complete strangers have given to us.
At a time when the world seems to be teetering on the edge of madness and hardship, there are people out there, offering advice, driving miles to be with us in the searches, spending money phoning everyone from dog groomers to DHL, as well as sending out posters to farmers and businesses about Jacob being missing.
The absolute generosity of you all, well it's just astounding.
We just can't begin to Thank You all for your continued support.

Extra Special Thanks must go out to our fabulous friends and absolute towers of strength Sarah, Stewart, Catherine and Simon, Tracy, Shaun, alongside Jane, Janet, Jackie and Carol for their continued support and advice.

Sincere Thanks to you all for the shoulders to lean and cry on.

The Spinone and Bracco communities are as ever the most wonderful group of people you could wish to have around.Their help and advice, and utter kindness really does hold no boundaries.

We do feel we should mention a very kind lady in our Thanks also. Joanne Hull, www.joannehull.com a reputed Animal Communicator, who that if through her dedication and free giving advice, thoughts and visions alone, would bring Jacob home in a heartbeat.

Despite a huge search on Saturday 24th Jan, with over 20 people and dogs arriving from all parts of the UK to form help (and nearly ending up in a few of us being arrested for deer poaching!) we all arrived back home, tired and aching, and with heavy hearts, there just wasn't any sign of him.
We de-clogged our walking boots, and hung up our coat for yet another night without our boy.

On the afternoon of Monday 26th Jan, we were out scouring the back roads and postering some 15 minutes away when a call came through from a ranger at Audley End House, a stately English Heritage house some 2 miles from our home.
They had apparently spotted a dog in the parterre garden, and it matched Jacob. 4 rangers agreed it was him.
We shot through those back roads as speeds I daren't remember, knowing that time was of the essence to get there before he had gone.
Sadly, even though it was some 10 minutes before we arrived, the area was vast, and the rangers hadn't really watched his whereabouts, so on foot we went and searched and searched the boundaries, anywhere he could be holed up, trees, buildings, but not a snifter.
Jon and I stayed out that night, and was still trespassing (ahem!) well into the early hours, NV firmly in hand. Again Jacob had outrun us, he wasn't waiting around.
Another low moment, we felt we were so near, yet obviously so far.

The days after the sighting meant we stayed pretty local to that particular area, late night searches and trespassing seemed order of the day (and night) but it turned up nothing at all despite our huge effort.

Again, after the 1st sighting, we had real hopes someone would see him around. Surely no dog can choose to be that elusive ?

To not see a distinctive orange and white large breed dog trundling along the fields or dare I say it, the roadside, well how can that be ?
We knew that the hundreds (and hundreds) of posters we'd put out were in prominent places, they were evidently being seen as everyone we stopped, already knew about Jacob, sadly they didn't know where he was.

We decided to set about trying to gain some media coverage in the local weekly papers, and thankfully were warmly greeted by them both covering a spread about the length we'd gone to to locate his whereabouts.
This week was only dampened further by our worry for his safe return to us as the worst snow for 2 decades hit our area (and largely most of the UK)
The night Jon and I were out, snow falling at such a heavy pace, must have been the lowest point in the search so far. How could he survive this weather. Would he survive it at all ?
We tried desperately to push those thoughts to the back of our minds, knowing that by now he surely would be resorted to losing the domestic dog identity we had given to him, and duly gaining that of a feral being.
We hoped he would be okay, we hoped more than anything he had somewhere warm and dry to shelter, and even more than that, we just hoped he could find food. He needed food to survive.

On Saturday 31st Jan, another sighting came through when we were out in convoy with a group of trusty friends. We drove through the town, to a 'blink and you'll miss it' hamlet called Purton End, apparently a passer by had seen a dog similar to Jacob ambling alongside the deep ditches on the country road passing through there. She thought it was definitely him having stopped nearby the town to get our number from a poster.
We all jumped into our cars and split up to get there.
We couldn't have been there more than 5 or 7 minutes later, but there was no sign of Jacob. We spent the whole of that afternoon, off in groups, looking, scouring woods, old buildings, walking miles to see if he was around there.
Sadly nothing again. Another low point.
I myself have some doubts about this sighting, just based on the fact that one of our friends who was out helping that day had driven by the very spot the passer by noticed 'Jacob', and was confronted with a liver and white Springer in almost the exact same spot.
On a friendly phone call back to her in order to reconfirm, she was adamant the dog she had noticed was most definitely not a Spaniel, and that she knew her dog breeds, Jacob and a Springer looked distinctly different. Amen to that. But I have this niggling feeling about it.
Especially hindered only by the fact that further investigation with the neighbouring houses led us to find out that yes, the Springer was 'always hovering in those ditches, and yes, one day it would be dead on the road if the owners weren't more careful'. Hmmmmmm

Since that time, we have had no real further sightings of Jacob.
We have had numerous possibilities that we have followed up, some which were definite no go's and some that are just plain silly.
All of them we have taken very seriously indeed, just because you just never quite know.

On the morning of Sunday 8th Jan, we received a call from Dr Ffion Coates, who with her husband Tim, has also been desperately trying to find their missing black Labrador Sky.

Sky disappeared on 1st December 2008, so has been missing for some 10 weeks now.

Please take a look at their blog, http://skyisstillmissing.blogspot.com/ and see if there is any help you can offer should you be located nearby.

Both Ffion and Tim are going to extraordinary lengths to find Sky, they too have a great team of support and have mastered their response to sightings in militray fashion which can only be admired.

Unfortuntely, their huge efforts have recently been hindered by the upset of those out to make the search that little bit more difficult for them, (like they need that) that is, by trashing their cameras and traps.

Sometimes other humans can be so cruel and absolutely mind bogglingly idiotic.

Thanks for the advice and support Ffion and Tim, we can't wait for both our boys to be finally back home.

We have managed this week to obtain media coverage on many radio stations,
Radio1, Heart Fm, BBC Radio Essex and Cambridgeshire, as well as full page articles in some of the weekend national papers, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, and the Telegraph.
Jon also managed to gain airtime on ITV Anglia news whilst out on a major search on Monday 9th Jan with Solly our Spinone, and Stewart and his Spinone Barney.

We are very confident now that we have reached the local (and somewhat national) heights of people knowing about Jacob being missing.
We just hope that after all of our combined efforts that 'call' will come to say he's been found.
Our hearts still leap every time a number we don't know flashes up on the mobile, just hoping and praying that perhaps this one call will be the one call to say they have our boy and he's safe and sound, ready to come home.

I can't wait for that moment. I just hope it's destined to happen.