All quiet on the Jacob front :-(

We seem to have come to a silent pause here in Jacob-Land.

After the buzz that was Monday and Tuesday, and having those 2 sightings in Bishops Stortford it now materialises after many (many) long and drawn out phones calls between the Police, dog warden, and numerous rescues, that the dog that could have been sighted as Jacob on those 2 occasions, was in fact a brindle greyhound......

The dog warden assures me that there are two loose and have been on the run for many weeks in the area Jacob was apparently sighted.

After letting out a rather huge and somewhat disappointed SIGH, we dusted ourselves off and with stiff upper lip decided to start a new plan of action.....I think we must on Plan E or F by now !

Having postered all the areas locally and the towns beyond, we really don't know what else to do, we feel helpless and guilty just sitting doing nothing, so have decided that our next campaign at Jacob HQ will be for Crufts.

We'll get ready hundreds of laminates that we can ask stall-holders to display, and also print off 1000 flyers to hand out to passers by.

As much as it will be an emotional reunion with all of our friends (and their gorgeous Spinoni and Bracco) at Crufts, we know deep in our hearts that it is an opportunity not to be missed, so brave faces firmly in place, we shall go into battle and poster and flyer the British public to our hearts content.

Who knows what people know or are privy to as far as information goes, there most certainly might be someone living next door to someone else who has mysteriously just got a 'new' dog -

Stranger things have happened and we may get a valid lead from our efforts.

We look forward to seeing all of our wonderful helpers and those people who have offered us so much support these last few weeks (and it has to be said over the past few years too for the other 'upsets' which I won't go into here)

I know for sure there will be many Thanks to give out to you all. Waterproof mascara is a must for me that day I think !

We have to give a mention here to Ffion and Tim who right now are in the middle of exciting times where Sky's sightings are concerned. Having brought in a trap on loan from Martin Soar (Thanks Martin) they are now waiting to see if their boy has finished his adventure and is ready to come home. I am sure it's his turn now for reunion and we have fingers and paws crossed for you both for some fabulous news this week

As for us, we we will await our turn as patiently as we possibly can, and know that it will come.

As the PD's keep telling me.....

..............Positive thoughts, positive thoughts

Just like buses.....

......you wait and wait and then 2 come along at once !

We had our second call today, a lady called saying she thinks she saw him in the car park of a children's play barn in Birchanger, Bishops Stortford on Wednesday 18th Feb around 7pm.

She said she was sure it was him, he was tall, very, very skinny, and orange and white.

She saw him on her way past initially, as she was travelling towards the airport at Stansted.

On her return back past the same road half an hour later, he was still there (oh how I wish we knew that - that is SO painful to know)

She said this time she got out to see if he would come to her, but as she had 2 young children in the car couldn't make a chase for him.

She also said she remembered his eyes, and thinks it was him having seen a poster yesterday.

The lady said he ran off towards the car sales place just across the road to the play barn, and then disappeared.

Jon came hurtling back from work about 11.30am and we gathered 120 laminated posters and 100 flyers and went off to the area. We have literally postered the whole place and surrounding villages to within an inch of our lives !

Now we have to sit, and wait......

I really hope that someone sees the posters in the next few days.

Surely one person only couldn't have seen him.

The road is the main road through to both Stansted, Stansted Airport and Cambridge, so people would be going through there all hours of the day and night.

Again, we are at the mercy of the public, and all we can do is hope for that call.

We have called the local police, dog warden, Homebase, children's play barn, Focus DIY, car sales lot, BMW garage all of which are in the direct vicinity of the sighting.

The JD's (our name for the 5 Jacob Detectives!) have been keenly emailing and calling everyone from taxi companies to dog trainers this afternoon.

Once we get a call, those JD's act with military haste, whilst we get out and search and poster, to have such dedication and help from these girlies, well, they are just brilliant.

As I said earlier, now we just have to sit patiently (yeah right) and wait for the calls -

Much the same scenario is playing out for Ffion and Tim with their missing Labrador Sky.......

3 calls today, something that no doubt would have had them reaching the ceiling with hope, but sadly all were about a dog which seems reliant of dashing their hopes. ROCKY !

I wish Rocky's owners would keep their dog from wandering.

Keep the faith you two, we'll share that champagne once our boys have found their way back from the Dogs Club on Mars....!

Wratting affair ?

We've not long had a call from a lady stating that she saw a dog that she really thought was Jacob along the Balsham/Wratting road.
This was going back to roughly the 29th Jan. The lady thinks it was a Thursday and near the end of the month. If it was the previous Thursday, then lost hunt dog may have been who she saw.

She and a lorry stopped in their cars, and she said she saw 'him' face on, he was very muddy and tall and slim build.

She said she would have stopped and tried to catch him if she'd have known, but she couldn't as she had her son in the car.
Jon was quick to ask her if she could be confusing the dog she saw with a hunt dog, as we have still had those 'sightings' nearby this area. He also asked if she could remember if the dog had a tail, which she couldn't sadly.

The main call from that way some 3.5 weeks back eventually led us to the hunt people stating the dog that a lady and another driver had caught was theirs.

It was duly collected the same evening from the house it was dropped off at, and therefore not logged as missing.

We've left messages again with the hunt people, in the hope we can find out for sure what happened there.

Of course this would be another 'hunt' dog if not Jacob as the dates of the other dog don't coincide.

We have already postered that area well, and so know that it's covered, but we'll drive out there again tonight and have a wander about.
It's a long time ago, so we're clutching at straws again, and of course as there are weekly hunt meets, it might another hunt dog after all. BUT then it could be Jacob.

We just have to keep an open mind......
I just wish these calls weren't getting reported weeks after sightings, (though we're grateful they do call of course) ...it's just they are a little stale and past there due date by the time you get them, but do help to piece together another part of the jigsaw.
We just crave that FRESH sighting now, or a call from someone who knows something about his whereabouts.
Fingers crossed

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Stop Press !

A lady just called back from the hunt in Thurlow. They did not have a hunt locally in Thurlow on the 29th January..... They had a hunt over our way, in Gt Chesterford.

So the dog that the lady who called today, could well have been Jacob IF the dates are correct and she can confirm the day she saw this dog was definitely the 29th.

We are now going to call this lady and ask her to look at some photos of Jacob, maybe that will trigger her memory as to the dog she saw that day.

Will of course keep you posted with any developments

Oh dear oh deer

This weekend marked us putting out our first lure in the shape of a dog cage.
It felt like quite a step forward for us, having had a long spell of silence, we feel that maybe this is a step in the right direction.

We had a call late Saturday afternoon from a lady called Val who lives near the water tower on Thaxted Road.

They had seen in the fields directly behind their house that a deer leg, very gnarled and chewed had been left nearby. They also noticed lone paw prints of a large dog, and decided to call us, just in case.

We of course went immediately to investigate the prints and the deer bones, and we also walked the area around the water tower, although this was hindered by the failing light.

The prints in the mud could well have been Jacob's - it was a large dog, and definitely there were no other human footprints nearby. The owners of the house also said they had seen the same size lone prints around the back of the house in the snow, but never put 2 and 2 together and thought it could have been Jacob. That's fine, we are just over the moon that Val called us as it might well be a lead, maybe he is in the area still as remember, we have a number of sightings out that way, and so many other things pointing us to that same area.

We decided that it would be worthwhile putting out a cage in case Jacob was round. This is not a trap, just a simple black anodised dog cage, with the door wedged open. We have put a pair of Jon's stinky socks inside, (Oh Jacob for that alone I apologise !) as well as Tiva's blanket and another blanket over the top to make it look less threatening. So far today, Val reports nothing has been touched, no food has gone.

It's of course a long shot, but it's worthy of a try for the time it took to organise.

We might well get lucky and if Jacob finds the cage and familiar smells he will stay closeby, I know from reading up that the dogs will usually just stake out nearby and check the cage is not a threat firstly, so for the next few days we will have to sit tight and wait and see.

I know there are many people willing Jacob to go to that cage, I SO hope that for once he is ears pinned back and he is listening to the advice !

Highs, lows and conspiracy theories

For the past 2 days we seem to have gotten back onto the rollercoaster.

Although the silence was absolutely driving us both crazy, sometimes when you get third hand information, that could or could not be true, you feel you just cannot ignore it.

As such we have now been trying to locate local hunt kennels having been given information that Jacob was being held, not by the hunt individuals themselves, but by people that are in some way connected to them. I wont go into detail here, because I do believe that for the most part, those that are involved in the hunts around the local parts are good people, and really have absolutely no valid reason to be intent on having kept our dog on their premises.

The doubts we have of any involvement are really slim, but those on the 'outside' of the hunt, we need to eliminate from any involvement based on the information we have been given.

So, for 2 days we've postered and postered around the places the local hunt kennels are, and also around the areas where each hunt takes place.

We haven't gone in guns blazing and accusing anyone of anything, because we don't have any evidence of that. We are purely just trying to make another area aware that if he's out there, and someone has him, we are hot on their heels to find him.

Maybe someone knows something, maybe we're on another wild goose chase, but when you are intent and bloody desperate to find something you love and miss more than words can possibly say, you will grab at any straws that could offer a maybe..... or a means to an end.

We have spoken with our local gamekeeper, who has only to be applauded for the help and advice he offers to us very freely. He himself has said he would be ashamed if it were found that someone locally had been involved in any way with Jacob's disappearance. I know he really thinks that too. He would be really genuinely upset.

We were given information from a few people today that know the local hunts people and also those involved. They will make enquiries for us where we could never do.

It's knowing that they can ask about and do that in the right way that makes things an awful lot easier for us.

We don't believe deep down that these people are holding our dog, our minds race with possibilities like no tomorrow, but I don't see that there are any real reasons as to why they would need to keep him.

Jacob is entire, but i'm sure he wouldn't be the first choice for most to choose to mate a dog with. It would only offer a cross, effectively a mongrel, as if they chose to try to breed a Bracco to Bracco we would be alerted in a heartbeat. It just wouldn't happen.

So, you see their are many things swimming around like time bombs in my head, waiting to explode into a 'what if' scenario.

Sometimes these days I find it hard not to imagine many things. Conspiracy theories, where he can be, who is with, why he is with them. I also have these awful visions of him lying somewhere curled up, helpless, broken and dead. That breaks my heart because we should be there for him, we are his protectors, and we feel we have truly let him down. That's a bitter pill to swallow I can't tell you.

I know, i'm sorry, this blog is just reading like a bad luck story these last few days, and i'm really very conscious of that. I wish so much I could write it in an upbeat manner, it would read so much nicer than this.

I do try to make light of the situation where I can, and try to reason it's not all doom and gloom, and yes, I know there are people out there in much more awful and desperate situations than this will ever be. But to us, this is a crisis, and we make absolutely no apologies for treating it as such.

Right now we feel well and truly fed up and very sad, we don't want much, we're not asking for thousands of pounds, diamonds or new cars, we just want our dog back, there's nothing else, surely that's not much to ask ?

We just need to resume normal life, go back to enjoying it, rather than just going to bed wondering and worrying what tomorrow will bring, and whether it'll be yet another crazy day of plastering another place with missing posters.

We just hope tomorrow will be the day that cures all this grief and heartache.

I so hope so, I hope that Wendy is right, that he will come home soon.

I can't tell you that that day just can't come soon enough.

Slow down, I wanna get off.....

What a day.......

Does this ever get any easier !?

This morning we had an email from our local Police Officer Paul who said that a very kind lady had called him and was concerned she might have seen Jacob.....

in Welshpool, Powys.

At first I thought - surely not, it cannot be, but as those of you know, you cannot doubt anything where a dog is concerned. They are not always in control of how and where they get somewhere, and of course within a few hours they can be halfway across the UK, or in this case Wales.

I left a message to that lady who spoke to Paul, and waited for her to call me back.

Meanwhile I contacted all the dog wardens in that immediate area, and unfortunately was told they only take calls between 8am and 10am each day.

A very helpful lady at the council agreed that I could email her all of ours, and Jacobs essentials along with a poster, and some clear photo's for identifying him if the need be.

So, this was done, and I sat back and hoped it wasn't Jacob, then I hoped it was, as then at least if they had him, we could be home by midnight with our boy safely back where he belongs.

I called the lady again around 4pm this afternoon, and she picked up. She had just that second walked in only to find herself being bombarded with questions from me.

She was really kind and answered everything with great precision and detail, even down to the exact places she had seen this stray dog.

I wrote down absolutely everything she told me, and we agreed for the sake of ruling this out for sure that I would email her clear photo's of Jacob, to which she would be able to really see the distinct shade of his colouring, and see if it matched what she remembered she saw.

This was all done and dusted, and we knew we could do no more until the dog warden and the lady had checked details.

Surely he couldn't have been picked up the day after he went missing ?

But then, everything is just a possibility now.

At 9.45pm tonight the lady from Welshpool very kindly called back.

She had taken time tonight to investigate and call a meeting in her area of people who she thought could help us, and it now materialises that a farmer in the area the dog was spotted has a young, light coloured hound, who quite often is loose in that same area as the dog in question. They all came to the same conclusion that this is what dog she saw, and it most definitely wasn't Jacob.

I don't know if we were relieved, or sad to be truthful, I guess a little bit of both.

Sad that perhaps it could actually have been him, and we might have been able to retrieve him from a kennel somewhere in Wales, but then on the flip side, relieved it wasn't him in case he was loose in a very strange and far away place that none of us would know where to start to look.

I'd like to say a huge Thank You to this lady for taking the time to call, I wish there were more people out there doing just the same as one of them could lead us to Jacob.

One thing we decided to do, was to really try to see that the rangers at Audley End did definitely see Jacob on the Monday after he went missing.

We aren't doubting what they saw, we just need to know 100% that Jacob was the dog running about there that afternoon. As we have a few niggling doubts perhaps about the Purton End sighting, we need to have some form of reassurance that Jacob was at Audley End that day. Otherwise, worryingly, he would not have been seen since Jon last saw him running into the distance on the 21st January.

One thing that struck a chord tonight, the kind lady all the way away, some 175 miles from our area, had taken the time to call up the police after the 2nd sighting of a dog she perhaps thought just possibly could have been our missing dog. She took time and effort to rule it out for the sake of knowing how much we wanted to find him.

Surely it goes to prove that others would have most probably have seen the same dog, and just totally dismissed it even though it was running loose, dirty looking and wandering nearby a road on it's own, quite clearly not with any owner in sight.

Belies belief really, and yet, here we are 4 weeks later, and in the local area, and where supposedly only 2 people have seen Jacob in all that time he has been lost.

What does this mean ?

Are people scared of involvement ? if so WHY?

Does it mean that he has been/is laying hurt or injured somewhere and has unfortunately succumbed to that injury, hindered only by the bad weather and freezing temperatures ?

Does it mean that because he hasn't necessarily been seen, it's because he isn't in this area to be seen ?

I don't know, but I do know that between Jon and I we have to remain positive and think that he can survive out there, yes it's a vast, vast area, yes we've covered an awful lot of ground in the last 4 weeks between us (personally for us some 600+ miles just in the car alone) but hey, it doesn't mean we've covered the ground where he is at.

Hopefully that day will come soon.

I'll only accept a HAPPY ending for this story, absolutely NO substitutes.

Memory Lane

I love this photo of Ollie (our epileptic Spinone who is no longer with us)

and an 11 week old Jacob, purely as it epitomises everything we love about

the 2 breeds we have

--------------------------------------------

Today we acknowledge that it is 4 weeks since we saw Jacob
4 weeks, it feels like a lifetime to be honest.

After trying to settle into normality yesterday, and then sitting here scouring email addresses for vets, dog walkers, dog groomers and couriers in the Cambridge areas, I did what I know I shouldn't have, and took a trip down memory lane.
Those that know us well know we don't have any children, that was not to be, so the dogs in our life became 'furkids'. Consequently where most people our age have a hard drive full of cute kiddie pics, we have a hard drive full of cute doggie pics, that is, some 25,000 odd to be precise !
No wonder this computer is slow !


As I sat here looking back from puppyhood and to the future browsing through the photo's it suddenly hit me as to what we had lost, what the work we are putting in each day (and night) is to bring back home.
I won't lie and say that it wasn't a relief to have yet another good cry, it felt lovely looking back through the memories we'd all created together.
I could only liken myself to the episode of 'Everybody Loves Raymond', whereby Deborah takes her 'me' time away from the kids to secretly sit with slushy love songs playing, and a box of tissues to make herself cry.


For me after the tears, it spurred me on to get Jacob, find where he is, and never let him out of my sight again.

We decided last night that we would have a late night drive around the areas we cover on a regular basis. Sometimes when it's dark, things stand out more clearly, or you can just sit, and listen.
We were planning to go out early hours, but it seemed unfair for Jon who had to be up and out by 8am to do this, so we went out just after 8pm and drove round, sat, got out to look through the NVG's and generally had a good look around.
We saw 2 badgers scurrying along the verges, in 2 separate areas, so it was nice to watch those through the NVG.


Thankfully, I think in the 2hrs of being out we met about 4 or 5 cars, and that was on the busier country roads. The back roads were absolutely silent, eerily quiet actually, especially as the fog came down more heavily. It did reassure us that if Jacob is moving around, and moving around at night particularly, then crossing the roads wouldn't hopefully be causing him much worry.
By 10.30pm we had to come back home as the visibility wasn't beyond 10ft in front of the car.


I really hope that in the next few days we hear something positive.
We need a boost, we desperately need something to say he really is out there