Albie

So so sorry Albie is still missing. I completely understand that everyone just wants to do whatever they can to help get him home safely. As you know, we were previously asked to stand down by Albie’s owners and the trapping team. The concerns we had around tracking him at that point are unfortunately still the same. Albie is a nervous dog and, having now been missing for longer, he is probably even further into flight/survival mode. We just need to be really careful that bringing people and tracking dogs into the area doesn’t put extra pressure on him or potentially push him away from somewhere he currently feels safe. I understand there have been some more sightings though, so it would be really helpful to know a little more about what’s happening now. When was the last confirmed sighting and what were the circumstances around it? Is he still being seen regularly or in a particular area? Is there anything that makes you think he could now be injured, trapped or unable to move away? Also, has anything else changed since we were originally asked to stand down? We’re absolutely happy to look at the situation again and see whether there is anything we can safely do to help. We just want to make sure that anything we do is in Albie’s best interests and doesn’t unintentionally make things harder for him.

Hi Joanna, thank you for the reply. Our most recent sighting of Albie was yesterday evening at 5pm (9/8). We received a phone call informing us they had seen a dog matching Albie’s description “standing” outside Wigginton Village Shop “looking around”. The dog then crossed Mill Lane and headed towards Wigginton Duck pond. Unfortunately, the caller wasn’t from the area and only made the connection it could have been Albie when she walked a bit further down the road and saw one of our posters at the bus stop. We asked for an accurate description of how Albie was behaving and she said he was standing still, looking around and then walked across the road. We were initially skeptical about this sighting because of the time of day and also the fact he was walking as this is not how we thought Albie would be behaving having being lost for 3 weeks now. We have since spoken to the caller numerous times and we are certain they are genuine; however, we are unsure if the dog they saw was actually Albie even though they described it as looking like Albie (given the reasons I mentioned previously). We were wondering if a scent team would be able to be used to just confirm there is a scent trail rather than tracking it. I’m not sure if this is a reasonable request but we thought given the advice of avoiding the scent team with Albie being nervous, asking for just confirmation of a scent so we can confirm it was actually Albie might be possible…?

Prior to this, we have had very limited sightings. Our last confirmed sighting was 25/7 on Oak Tree Lane, Haxby. We then had one potential sighting on 2/8 in Clifton Backies - this was never confirmed as it was a dog walker who saw a small black dog who appeared in flight mode, run across the woods in front of her. We had cameras/food stations put up at both locations but they never captured Albie.