The following is the story of our dogs theft and the great efforts we made to try and recover them, which in turn gave us the impetus to start the Vets Get Scanning Appeal. Your help will make a difference. Debbie and Richard Matthews.
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I parked my car in the Marks & Spencers car park at The Meadows in Camberley. It is a flagship store where the car park is always busy with shoppers; there are also security men and car washers wandering around. Walking back to the car after shopping I could see two men standing by it.
As I had left the vented roof of the car open, I thought the dogs must be barking like mad, what a strange place to stand! As I got closer I could see there was no reflection from the driver’s window, I started to run towards the men and shouted
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[pullquote style=”left” quote=”dark”]Are my dogs OK? [/pullquote]
They both turned and looked in the car and one man shouted back
[pullquote style=”left” quote=”dark”] ‘What dogs?’[/pullquote]
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It seemed like everything then went into slow motion, the shock and disbelief took over. I phoned my husband who was working in London, he tried different members of the family to see who could get to me the quickest, it turned out my father was only half and hour away and was immediately on his way to get to me. I was taken back into the store where we phoned the police. Dog theft is not a registered crime; I only got a crime number because my car window had been smashed, so the crime was reported as ‘Car Theft’. To complicate matters The Meadows is on the corner of three counties, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire so all three police forces had to be informed separately with separate crime numbers!
My father arrived; he had already spoken to the Surrey police and also spoke to the Berkshire police when he arrived at Marks and Spencers. We left the store, and went back to his house, where we started calling different dog organisations such as RSPCA, Battersea Dogs Home, Dog Trust anyone we could think of.
The dogs were microchipped, so we contacted Petlog who were very helpful and told me that they contact local veterinary surgeries and dog wardens, I just kept thinking we will get them back, they are microchipped, this thought kept me going the first night. We went online and started to look for some more information on what we could do.
[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#e2e2e2″ end_color=”#ebebeb” border=”#e2e2e2″ color=”#333333″]Wednesday, 3rd May 2006.[/message]
We found a website called www.doglost.co.uk. We sent them photos of Widget and Gizmo and they put a poster together instantly. Jayne Hayes founder of Doglost told us to get back to where the theft happened and start putting up posters and talking to other dog owners. Jayne was also the one who told us that
[pullquote style=”left” quote=”dark”]VETS DON’T SCAN![/pullquote]
What horror, how could this be, when a Vet sells you the mircrochip system you are told that this will help you get your stolen or lost dog back, but why don’t they follow up on a scheme that they sell?
I told Jayne that my father was Bruce Forsyth and that he was going on ‘This Morning’ on Friday and asked if he should he say something? The advice from her and other people was to say nothing to the press or TV as this could endanger the dog’s lives by making them too hot to handle. We also phoned Lionel and Sue Blair for advice who had had their dog Florence stolen in February, they had a lot of press coverage but their dog was not returned and is still missing.
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We found out that a couple of newspapers were contacting Marks and Spencers to find out more about a story that they had heard. Everyone kept quiet, we where told the first week was the most important, if the dog nappers saw the posters, they would phone saying they had found the dogs, we just wanted to get to the end of that first week.
We spent the whole weekend sticking up posters, visiting markets and car boot sales. The founder of another web site alfieslostterriers, Justine, and her friend came and helped us.
[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#e2e2e2″ end_color=”#ebebeb” border=”#e2e2e2″ color=”#333333″]Monday, 8th May 2006.[/message]
One week had gone by. A Daily Mirror reporter and photographer arrived at Marks and Spencers where I was still spending a couple of hours a day handing out posters, before going to new areas to put the posters up. I knew we couldn’t stop the story getting out, so I gave an interview in order that they had as much information about the dogs as possible.
What more could we do? It was now out of our hands, what if nothing came from the newspaper article?
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Natasha Kaplinsky having read the article in the Daily Mirror, telephoned my father and said that the BBC news would like to do a piece on our story, as Dog Theft was one off the biggest growing crimes in the UK
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GMTV had also called to arranged an intervIew
About mid day we got a call from Doglost to say that GMTV had had a call from a viewer which they were following up.
2.00pm I got a call to say they were sending the dog warden around to the home of the couple who had called in, to check the dog for a microchip number.
3.00pm I got a call from Ron Oliver the dog warden for the Hayes district. He told me that it was Widget, who looked fit and well and was being looked after a man called Philip.
GMTV were there to film the moment.
[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#e2e2e2″ end_color=”#ebebeb” border=”#e2e2e2″ color=”#333333″]Friday 12th May 2006.[/message]
My father, Widget and I did an appeal for Gizmo.
About 10.30am I got a call from GMTV who said a lady had phoned in about Gizmo, She said her friend had bought a small dog in Southall who barked a lot! She then got her friend to phone in. I passed the number on to Jayne at Doglost, who phoned me back to say it looked like it was Gizmo but they were sending in the Dog Warden to check the microchip.
12.00 pm I got a call from Ron Oliver (the same dog warden as the day before!) who also covered the Northwood district. He told me that it was Gizmo, who looked fit and well and was being looked after by a lady called Billy Jo. My father and I jumped in the car and by 2.00, we were driving back home with Widget and Gizmo. How lucky had we been!
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Reunited with Gizmo on GMTV
Without GMTV I wouldn’t have both dogs home. You can’t experience this crime and not feel that you want to do something to help all the other dog owners who have not been as fortunate as us.
With your help we can make a difference, just by asking your vet to scan all dogs at their practice and then for them to adopt a practice policy for all dogs to be routinely scanned on their first visit, you will be helping to get stolen microchipped dogs back home. It really is as simple as that!
Please sign our petition and help spread the word.
Also ask your local pet shop, dog groomers, dog walkers and anyone who loves dogs to visit our web site.
We would like to say a special thank you to Philip and Billy Jo.
