Baxter, spaniel

A stolen dog is reunited with his family thanks to our Trusted House Sitters
By Lisa
December 20th, 2013

Ray and Karen, Trusted House Sitters from London, have got in touch to share some fantastic news. While house sitting in the English countryside for second time this year they found a gorgeous spaniel loose on the road. Thanks to their help Baxter was reunited with his family in time for Christmas.

Ray and Karen, house sitters from London. Ray, a retired police officer, and Karen, a retired information manager, love dogs so were thrilled to help Baxter find his family

“We had just met our previous family for breakfast and had a lovely time catching up with them. We said our goodbyes and set off along one of the country roads to head back to the house. We had just slowed down as we thought we might have taken a wrong turn when saw a little spaniel running along the middle of the road towards us. The road was not particularly busy but we knew it was the kind of road where cars would travel quite fast so we knew we had to act quickly as a car could come speeding along at any moment. As we opened the driver side where the dog was we were afraid he might get nervous and run off. Luckily he was only a little nervous and we spoke to him he quite happily jumped onto Ray’s lap! We were very relieved as just at that moment a car went by travelling very fast. We realised we now needed to find where the poor little chap had come from.

Having visions of some poor family frantically searching the surrounding countryside for him we drove down the road a little further then back again to see if anyone was looking for him. We could see no one so decided to take him to the nearest vet in the hope that he was microchipped. We were so happy to find that he was!  The veterinary nurse quickly contacted the family to let them know we had found their beloved pet and we could tell from the reaction that they were very happy! However the story took an interesting turn when they told us their dog had been stolen 6 weeks earlier.

Rescued spaniel
Baxter at the vets shortly after being rescued by Ray and Karen. Thanks to his microchip he was shortly reunited with his family.

Apparently Baxter had run off chasing pheasants when the family were walking him in nearby woods at the beginning of November. Someone had just happened to find him when two men drove up and said he was theirs. He was happily handed over to the two men as there was no reason to doubt their story. However they were lying and the dog has been missing ever since. The family were distraught and distributed leaflets as well as launching appeals on social media sites for any information on his disappearance. They created a ‘Find Baxter’ Facebook page in the hope that someone would spot him somewhere. They even involved a pet detective! (not the Jim Carey version however) and were on TV. Unfortunately we were not aware of any of this, not being from the area.

The family were very happy to get their lovely little pet back and the smiles on their faces were the best reward we could ever need! However we feel that the most important lesson to be learned from this story is the benefit of microchipping. We were very grateful for it in finding Baxters owners and I know that they are very glad they used it as it brought their much loved family member back home!”

Source: http://blog.trustedhousesitters.com/a-stolen-dog-is-reunited-with-his-family-thanks-to-our-trusted-house-sitters/