THE CASEY STORY
(Part 2)
It was 16th March 2001 and Casey was 14 months old! Casey
(Synvillans Skyeline at Barkly) had arrived from
Casey had been born and raised on a tiny Island near Gothenburg; his was an idyllic life where the nearest neighbours were Deer and the only passing traffic - boats heading seaward, his family home being surrounded on 3 sides by the Sea.
We'd always anticipated a period of anxiety for Casey and for us whilst steering him through the confusion of contrasts between his old life and the new. Ours is a noisy, typically suburban environment with the additional challenge of being situated on a busy 'bus route' main road; but we were confident of his ability to cope, re-assured by his phlegmatic attitude to life. Nothing really bothered him, and each new experience he handled with a sensible 'working things out and moving on' approach.
By the time 16/03/2001 arrived we were confidently building on his range of experiences and were beginning to allow him a little more freedom of choices, one of these was our routine late night wee on the front lawn before bed. As it happened, 16/03/2001 was Comic Relief night, it was also the night before my Birthday, we sat and enjoyed the evening's entertainment until during a commercial break 11.30'ish, I took the dogs out onto the front lawn, as usual. What wasn't usual, were the Fireworks that suddenly exploded about 100 yards from the house, Casey immediately panicked and ran indoors (Phew) but I foolishly hesitated long enough to retrieve Sally's football which I'd noticed she had carried out with her. In that instant, with fireworks still exploding Casey had come back out, and now totally stressed, took off down the drive and up the street. I called the other dogs to come with me as I hurtled up the street after him, but Kelvin seeing potential numerous catastrophes, called the others back leaving me in pursuit of a totally freaked out dog. Casey darted blindly in and out of gardens, back and forth across the main road, until he happened upon an alleyway that he is familiar with from our daily walks, with me in hot pursuit, through driving snow - no coat and no shoes. Kelvin meanwhile got the other dogs safely indoors and then set off in the car to find us. The back alleyways are a maze, and I followed Casey through the snow, mud, sludge, rubble, and fighting through brambles, until my last sighting at an alleyway crossroads. At this point there is an overhead light where he stopped in confusion, unsure of which direction to turn, several 'walk' options here! I waited in an agony of indecision calling and entreating him to wait or come, but he couldn’t even hear me; turning away he bolted off again towards another main road and expanding the maze of alleyways.
We searched that night until 3.00 a.m. tracking rapidly obliterating paw prints in the ever falling snow, we heard the squealing of brakes and angry blaring of car horns which sent Kelvin off in a different direction, catching a glimpse of Casey in the rear view mirror hurtling across a road back into the alleyways, with no hope of catching up with him.
I was back out at 6.00, the snow had stopped, optimistically hoping to find tracks, but it was now melting fast so drew a blank and returned home to organize posters and troops (family) to begin what was to become a six and a half week epic. The RSPCA was closed due to F&M activities (we were in a restricted area) and Dog Wardens are unavailable at the weekend, leaving only Police Stations. At 8.15 that morning (Saturday) I phoned the local police station (2 miles away) to report lost Casey, the policeman on duty, taking the details remarked that a dog of that description had just run through the police car park! Off we charged taking Sally to try to corroborate the sighting; it didn't seem possible, Casey would have had to negotiate an outer ring road dual carriageway to get there, and knowing his dislike of traffic, it seemed improbable. The policeman was sure the dog was exactly like Sally, and said that he had a length of wire attached to his tail. We searched the densely populated area, were there most of the day agonizing that we might be in the wrong place, itching to get back to where we had last seen him.
The next few days were spent phoning all relevant help agencies, putting information on the internet, placing adverts in newspapers, printing off hundreds of posters, searching and flooding a 2 mile radius area with mailers in shops, vets, on lamp posts, park entrances and door to door mailbox drops, and also arranging call diversion from home phone to mobile. On the Tuesday night a woman ran after me as I was posting through letterboxes to tell me that a colleague at work had been telling her of a cross O.E.S type dog which he had discovered in his driveway during the early hours of Sunday morning. This was in a village (Shilton) about 6 miles from home, seemed unlikely, but if the police station sighting was correct, still possible as it was a logical trail from there. Again, horrendous roads which didn't bear thinking about; and now our time was further divided by trying to cover 3 search areas. The newspaper ads had now started to appear, and we had also arranged a large advert with photo in the weekly free paper and a 'story' to appear on Saturday in the local daily. The new area had to be covered with posters, mail drops and phone calls to local farmers as we were now in farming country. We had expanded the poster strategy as, if it was Casey travelling this sort of distance, then we had to try to get ahead of him, so now every sighting had to be dealt with as the centre of a 3 mile search radius. Meanwhile, an animal communicator had contacted us with offers of help and she was directing us back to an area within half a mile from home, and whilst we were initially understandably skeptical, the days were dragging on with no new sightings (apart from the expected but frustrating red herrings). We had started to clutch at straws and so were drawn back to our home territory once again.
Desperation was starting to set in!
On the Friday, a week after Casey's flight we had a call from a couple who had seen him that day in another village, Withybrook the next one further on from Shilton, they had seen one of our posters. They'd actually seen Casey earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Wednesday and again on this Friday when they had got near enough to touch him before he bolted again. They thought he was a 'dumped' pet, until they saw the newspaper ad on Friday. An interesting observation was that this dog's rear end was entangled with some type of wire or possibly bramble, so it began to look as if this was the same dog spotted at the police station. Phone calls had started to pile up with reported sightings, mostly red herrings, but all had to be investigated. One was a confirmation of Casey's run towards the police station on the dual carriageway, when a driver actually used his car as a shield to protect Casey from the hurtling traffic. Another from a farmer in Shilton who had discovered Casey in her pig pens; both told of an entanglement of wire. The farmer (rare breeds, sheep and pigs) had tried to catch him, anxious about the F&M outbreak just 2 miles up the road, and caused him to bolt flying over the boundary fence onto the main road. Hearing the screeching of emergency braking, she thought a car had hit him, but this event was what sent him hurtling down the road towards Withybrook.
Well we spent a week at Withybrook, joined in the search by locals on horseback and on foot, family and also friends from the email lists living near enough to come and help look. We were there from early a.m. to late at night, often not home until after midnight; we did find his tracks, but for the entire week we were there no more sightings. By the time we had been there a week, the locals were offering tea and practically beds to sleep in, we'd become part of the scenery! Luckily the farmers in the area were mainly agricultural and as helpful as possible considering the F&M crisis. On Friday (day 14), I was in the middle of a deeply muddy field (the sort that sucks your wellies off), on my own apart from a little local girl, searching for tracks. We normally found fresh tracks daily, but there had been none for 2 days now. I was anxiously trying to heave the gaily chattering child out of the stinky bog before she completely disappeared, when the mobile rang with a call from a woman in another village about 2 miles away (Monks Kirby).
This didn't sound too promising, she described him as a blue merle Bearded Collie, rather snottily assuring me that she knows what a Bearded Collie looks like "a lady in the village has one" (which subsequently turned out to be an O.E.S.)! She had inadvertently spooked this 'stray' when yelling at her own dogs to get out of the farmer's field and only had a glimpse of him racing across the field before disappearing into what became the nightmare of the 'Denbigh Estate'. 3600 acres of mostly agricultural land and an impressively intact feudal system.
Now our human resources were unbelievably stretched, we had progressed into Rugby District. There were new wardens and newspapers to be contacted, we were still running continual ads in our own papers giving the locals updates on new sightings and were amassing a horde of concerned followers in our home town. The daily routine phone calls took about 2 hours before we could get out, contacting all police stations, Petsearch, wardens and holding kennels, in case Casey slipped thru the net. We also personally posted posters with Casey pictures at police stations, heard too many horror stories to leave things to chance.
Monks Kirby produced a gem in the form of Tracey Mills, who works in the village and her efforts combined with the local post-mistress, worked behind the scenes to involve the Monks Kirby residents. But we were struggling with the intricacies of who owned what land, permission from tenant farmers, who turned out not to own the land we were searching and everyone getting tetchy. We had another sighting here on Sunday when we organised a 6 car invasion, but a dark grey shape slithering from a ditch, glimpsed by a child was not reassuring, especially when another sighting that day had him back in Withybrook!
We weren't convinced by the Monks Kirby sightings so we were still covering our local area and Withybrook as well, but as routine we had extended the posters out over another 3-mile radius from Monks Kirby.
The following Friday (13/04) we had a call from a very curt farmer near Pailton (another 2 miles on), his stark message " I've just seen your bloody dog, and you've got today to get him or I will".
The race was on again, desperate to get there as Casey might just be passing thru', might not even be him! We felt that we were chasing a shadow, except the shadow kept moving. We weren't even convinced all these sightings were Casey! Amongst the numerous bogus sightings we had 3 that seemed relevant enough to follow, wasting time, chasing what turned out to be a blue merle Border Collie and 2 separate Lurchers, all in different locations! So what kept us hanging on to this thread? Just gut instinct!
The new location was a mixed cattle and sheep farm, mostly dairy cattle, but
there was also a small herd of
It was with a mixture of excitement and intense anxiety that we headed off across the muddy fields towards the disused Railway lines crossing the land; Casey had been seen the evening before, nearer to the farmhouse in a field full of ewes with new born lambs, but this morning was spotted disappearing into the railway cutting. It was a strip approx. 1.5 miles long, 3 metres wide with steep embankments on both sides, wooded and completely overgrown. We found Casey tracks and followed them along until we reached a really boggy corner thick with brambles; we had Pko with us hoping that his juvenile pale coat colour would provide a highly visible memory jog for Casey. Pko was now totally stuck up to the belly in mud and refused to attempt the thicket of bramble ahead of us (with Birmingham Champ. Show on the morrow) Whilst cursing the glorious show coat we are normally so proud of, but was now such a severe hindrance to a dog in this environment, Kelvin remarked that Casey would probably have re-acted the same way to these obstacles. So we turned away from the cutting, the new route taking us back towards the lane leading to the farm where there were also a couple of cottages We started along the tarred lane trying to find pawprints when a car came past us from the cottages heading toward the main road, the car stopped and a voice asked if we were looking for a dog, they had just seen a dog like Pko (different colour) on the lane trotting past their cottage (500 metres from where we were standing). The lady shows Border Collies and she had tried to coax Casey to her, but as usual he'd taken off across the Rape field. I raced off with Pko, found the Rape field, steamed across it, throwing off items of clothing as I went, poor Kelvin, having to stop and retrieve coat and sweater along the way. At the gap into the next field, I suddenly saw him at the furthest corner; he was scenting the trail we had left 30 minutes earlier. Pko and I stood still and called and called, Pko enthusiastically adding his voice to the effort, but Casey was too far away and didn't seem to hear for several minutes, then the sound reached him, he lifted his head and looked straight at us - stood for an eternal minute before taking off again, in the opposite direction!!!. My heart was soaring! This was the first time we'd seen him in 4 weeks; he looked magnificent racing and leaping across obstacles in his path, soaring over a 5 foot hedge without breaking his stride, he seemed so in control and in harmony with his new life. His coat from a distance looked brilliant and he was so athletic, we could only take heart that somehow he had learned to live off the land and at least wasn't starving to death. Oh, the power of illusion bred in the cesspit of wishful thinking!
The search continued until dark, we went home anxious about the farmers intent to shoot, but hoped that after several conversations with him during the day and the fact that he now knew that this was no ordinary stray dog, the amount of Media coverage we were maintaining, by now I had managed to get a spot on local BBC Radio. We had also requested concerned friends on the international Internet list to E-mail Central T.V. News after our own abortive attempts, and they had heroically responded with a gargantuan flood of mails to the program producers. Not that it had any effect, but was a marvelous effort and was one of the many unbelievable gestures of support from around the World which shored us up when our spirits were flagging.
The next day we were back at the farm with reinforcements, it was a long, long day, playing hide and seek with Casey. We had 3 sighting amongst various members of our search team. I was within 6 feet of him when I heard him crashing thru' the undergrowth, I'm sure he was lying waiting, having heard our voices, but other members of the team joined us at the critical moment causing him to bolt; that was about 4.00 p.m.
We had to be home by 6.00p.m as we had arranged a family get together. We'd been home for all of 10 minutes when the phone rang with another sighting back at Monks Kirby, things were obviously getting a bit too hot for comfort at Cestersaver Farm and Casey had retreated. Off we sped again, the 'sighter' (Lady Denbigh's cousin) had tried to stay with him but lost him. Within an hour we had another sighting from a cottage dweller on the estate, but it was now dark and we had to call it off again for the night.
The next 2 weeks were too tedious and frustrating to go thru day by day. It amounted to total frustration as the feudal system closed ranks to deny us access to the land, we were still there every day, like a pus'y pimple that won't go away. I spoke to Lady Denbigh; she is an animal lover but was caught up in the anxieties of the tenant farmers. The F&M crisis for them was a real life drama; but so was our dog!
We had realized by this time that the only way Casey was going to be retrieved was by trapping, and I had already been trying to accumulate a number of traps from different sources, including Master of the Hunt, who was 100 percent more helpful than the R.S.P.C.A!!!?
We had managed to get the Estate's gamekeeper into a more helpful frame of mind with the offer of a £500.00 reward, when he switched from wanting to shoot the dog, to being willing to attempt an entrapment,
Another 10 days were to go by with constant arguments with Bob (the gamekeeper) about the 'bait' in the trap, he was using freshly killed rabbit with spilled guts, which he described as 'irresistible' to dogs. I tried to explain that Casey didn't like raw meat and that I was willing to take a freshly roast chicken every day, which I know he loves. Bob had a few sightings during this period and was reporting that he looked very dispirited or tired, except of course when Bob chased him a few times on his Quad Bike (motorbike thingy for travelling cross country). Can't imagine why he thought that would work and I was being driven crazy knowing that all this chasing malarkey was just making the whole thing more difficult for us when we eventually had access to the land.
I had started investigating our legal rights and discovered that we had a right of access to the land in order to recover personal property. The F&M regulations were still clouding what exactly we were able to do, but apparently we would need to report the matter to the Police and be accompanied by them. We were still deliberating the inherent flaws with this one, as it wasn't a simple matter of entering the property, picking up the goods and walking out again. Maff were telling us that they expected the restrictions to be lifted by the middle of the following week. Whether Casey had that much time left we were beginning to doubt We had made arrangements for Casey's breeder to come from Sweden, but when discussing this with Lady Denbigh she made it clear that they would not be co-operating with this plan either. Only Ann-Britt would be allowed entry and she would have to travel the estate on the Quad bike with Bob, really helpful in view of the fact that he had already been chased by the roaring monster on a number of occasions.
Day 45 dawned (30th April) and I had a doctor's appointment so didn't arrive back home until late morning. The doctor had diagnosed depression associated with my ongoing neck injury, had to have a little chuckle at that one, as he had no idea how I'd been spending my time during the past six and a half weeks. He was prescribing anti depressants and I was thinking 'I just need to get my dog back'!
When I arrived home I saw that Bob had called but hadn't left a message, tried to call him but there was no reply so had to wait for his return call. I'd been having 'Casey's dead' premonitions for a few days so was in agony waiting for the call. At last the phone rang, Bob was asking to be reminded about the amount of the reward, and then said, "bring your cheque book and you can collect your dog". I've charitably decided this was just a heavy-handed attempt at a joke, and if not, who cares, we were on the road again, back to Denbigh hopefully for the last time. Our excitement and relief were indescribable, but we were also taut with fear that something could still go wrong.
We met Bob at the local pub and he told details of the successful entrapment. As good luck would have it, Bob's last rabbit bait carcass had rotted and fallen apart in the trap, and as he couldn't be bothered going out to shoot another, he'd thrown a few scraps of bacon and cheese in the previous night. Seems all too obvious to you and I doesn't it, but Bob was amazed by it's success! We definitely had a hate relationship with Bob most of the time, but he was so excited by having actually managed to trap Casey, in spite of his worst efforts, we did begin to feel a flicker of affection. Didn't do his kudos in the village any harm either, and I imagine he felt something of a celebrity when he and Lady Denbigh started receiving 'Thank you' cards from all over the world, organised once again by our global internet family.
Amazing was the fact that now he needed us to get the dog off the estate, we seemed to no longer pose such a threat of spreading the dreaded F&M disease, because now we were being allowed to follow Bob on to the land!
He had explained the difficulties of getting the trap out of the depths of the boggy wood, having to single handedly manhandle the trap with Casey inside onto the trailer, drawn by the detested Quad bike. He warned us that Casey was like a wild animal, he had been afraid of being bitten, so hadn't attempted getting him out of the trap (thank goodness). He was now in a kennel in a huge stone barn. As we approached the barn, Bob was still making feeble jokes about not being sure it was the right dog, to which I retorted, " I don't care, we'll just take him anyway and call him Casey"
Our first sight of the now secured Casey was unbelievably emotional; he really did look like a wild animal in a cage. He must have heard the sounds of our approach and our first sight was of a dog feverishly trying to find an escape route, he was darting all over the kennel and jumping at the walls in desperation. I started squeaking greetings at him and the transformation was electric, terror gave way to a rapturous excitement as he ran to the wire to greet us, now he was squeaking with excitement, frantically licking my fingers and wriggling ecstatically between Kelvin and me. Was this really the same dog that apparently moved on every time we traced him and got within catching distance? Out of the kennel, he went ballistic, jumping up and kissing us, even Bob was included in the excited flurry of greetings, much to his disbelief, and he just couldn't comprehend that an animal could change so miraculously in the space of seconds.
Well the chase was at last over, although the ordeal was to continue for another week. Casey was almost at the end when we got him back. He pooped pure soil and was terribly emaciated, he slept all the time and his digestive system had shut down. Food was administered 2 dessertspoons hourly, and went straight through within 10 minutes. Our vet put him on a Prescription diet, administered vitamin injections and warned that it would now be a waiting game to see whether or not his digestive system would recover, a lot like an anorexic. His coat was irretrievably matted and whilst Casey slept I gently started brushing and scissoring off the mouldy smelling hair. I slept downstairs on the floor with Casey, not a lot of sleep due to the frequent and hurried trips outside; we couldn't give him free access to the garden; he had to be on a lead at all times. Motorbike noises from the road outside freaked him and we had seen him measuring up the height of the fences within a few hours of being home. We had a crisis day on that Friday; Casey had now been home for 5 days. At the start of the day it was obvious that something was wrong, that is 'more' wrong, Casey was different, lying stretched out on his side with every bone showing in his poor emaciated body, asleep but not a normal sleep. We could rouse, but not really wake him, couldn't get him on his feet at all that day and he wouldn't look at food, even water had to be administered by syringe. I was heartbroken, I couldn't believe that this was how it was all going to end, after all we and he had been through it just seemed to cruel to be borne. I had cried myself to exhaustion by the time bedtime came and Kelvin slept downstairs with Casey that night. Kelvin had an unbroken night's sleep, apart from the occasional check, but Casey never stirred; by next morning we knew he'd turned the corner. He was very weak but looked so much brighter, had a small breakfast and unbelievably didn't pooh it straight back out, In fact, several small feeds and hours later, he still hadn't poohed; at last we knew he was safe. We think the previous day's crisis was brought about by his digestive system kicking in and in his weakened state proved to be as much as his poor body could cope with. So Nature dictated that age-old cure….Sleep!
Casey has very quickly returned to normal, he is not the same dog in some ways that he was before and in others exactly the same. He has the same sweet, very gentle nature that he always had still loves cuddles and kisses, still prefers to be with his human rather than the other dogs. The changes are in a more mature attitude to life, not so reactive to everyday things that might have scared him previously, calmer, now happy to say hello to visitors. He loathes motor bikes and fireworks, more alarmed by these than before, the way he react to loud cracks convinces us that he has been shot at; he is now enthusiastic about food (wonder why) when he used to be quite picky. He now doesn't like wide open field walks, HAS to be near the boundary hedges; he can't be allowed off the flexi lead, the sound of a motorbike can make him unpredictably spooky and he hears them long before we do. Home is his safe haven and he is now totally relaxed inside, no matter what noises are going on out. He carries horrid scars on his left hind leg of his ordeal with the wire he was entangled in.
I suspect The Casey story will continue for many years to come as he settles down and gradually becomes the dog that he was truly meant to be. We are glad to have him back, he's 'special' and not just because he was lost for such a long time, the expression in his eyes truly are a mirror to his soul, this is no ordinary dog; he is courageous, serene, intelligent and kind. He's Casey!
Cathie Whittaker and Kelvin Faulkner at Barkly Bearded Collies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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E-Groups Lists namely: -
BDL - For their unflagging support, chivvying, encouragement and enthusiastic response to anything we asked of them. Mainly our American friends with a welcome sprinkling of other Nationalities
Bearded Collies U.K.: For their more subtle English style of support, the so helpful late night /early morning chats, offers of help; advice, fielding of mails (Tina), practical help - Ian and Lee's bodies! You all know who you are, too numerous to mention and to miss anyone would be a crime!
UKShowdogs: - For their wealth of useful information and personal experiences which all helped more than they know. Special thanks to Derrick Greer who lent his supa dupa binoculars as well as his body, and Ray Coles for his body and support. Also 'Runfold Eddie' Casey's first visitor.
Individuals
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Our families, especially Janelle.
Tracey Mills, we gained a friend.
The people in the villages whose lives we disrupted,
AND FINALLY: - Bob the Gamekeeper, who finally came good and gave us a glimpse of a kinder soul.