From tomorrow's Electronic Teelgraph: ISSUE 1441, Thursday 6 May 1999

Internet lookouts trace lost dog on 200-mile odyssey

A DOG that disappeared during a family holiday has been found after travelling more than 200 miles across two dual carriageways [divided highways], several rivers and the wilds of Dartmoor.

Merlin, an eight-year-old collie, was seen exhausted and emaciated three weeks after disappearing from a clifftop near Brixham in south Devon when he set off after a scent. Penny and Lawrence Cantle, and their children Lauren, 11, and Christopher, eight, spent the last four days of their holiday at Buckland Filleigh, near Holsworthy, North Devon, searching for him without success.

On returning to their home in Hockley, Essex, they sent out e-mails and used a CD-Rom phone directory to contact people at random to enlist their help in the search. They received more than a dozen sightings, which showed Merlin had made his way across more than 200 miles of countryside as he travelled south, but no one could catch him. After each sighting the family used the CD-Rom directory on their computer to find the telephone numbers of people who lived nearby so they could ask them to join the hunt.

Finally they received a call from a woman in Stoke Gabriel who had seen Merlin while out walking that afternoon. The couple immediately set out on a nine-hour, 480-mile round trip, arriving at the country park where he had been sighted at 2.45am.

"I whistled and called Merlin's name and when I turned around I saw a grey shadow coming out of the darkness," said Mrs Cantle, 43. "He just flopped at my feet. All he wanted to do was to get in the car so we drove straight home again. He is incredibly thin and covered in sheep tics and had very sore paws. I do not know how he survived for so long and covered such a distance. He is very tired now and is just sleeping and sleeping. The children were absolutely overjoyed to have him back."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), May 05, 1999

Answers

I'm self employed and provide a service in the home. A few years ago I talked to a customer in the morning and she was very upset, because she had lost her Irish setter a couple of days ago.

That afternoon I was at another customer who's husband runs a veternary business. She told me that someone had brought an Irish setter to her husband for him to find the owner. I put two and two together and called the dog owner and told her where to find her dog. It's a small world.....

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), May 05, 1999.

WHeN DIeteR Was jUst A SMaLL laD His paRENtaL unITs movED EVerY 3 Or 4 MOnthS!!!!!! ThiS MAde diETer aN EXCeLLenT TracKER, And dId wondERS FOr dieTER's quaDRaCEPs anD HAMstrINgS, is thAT Not so???????

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), May 06, 1999.

Freddie, Dieter, thanks for dropping by! I meant to add to the original post that just as it is the small things that are likely to bring the system down, so it is the small things that make us human. (Is that not so, Dieter???)

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), May 06, 1999.