Charlie finds his way home

No time for the winter blues here in Southport, it's all been happening since Christmas.

We had the storm, I think it was called Eleanor and it deposited all sorts of rubbish on our beaches, the amount of plastic washed up was incredible and it really makes you think.

Two other things as a consequence of the storm were very unusual indeed and we were directly involved in both of them.

Suzy took two of the dogs for a run on the beach and came across a stranded seal, it appeared in good health as far she could tell and quickly put the dogs in the car and came home to ring for help. The RSPCA were just a bit better than useless but someone at the Marine Life centre said they would go down to the beach and have a look.

Apparently you can do more harm than good trying to catch one of these creatures so unless it really needs medical help they are best just ushered in the right direction.

To cut a long story short the seal swam off towards the sea but was spotted the very next day on the beach again. It was a very high tide and the seal probably couldn't make it out to sea and came back.

The Marine Life guy eventually caught it and later released at New Brighton where it could swim off happily. The things you see by living on the coast!

A couple of days later we were back on the beach with the pack and its not unusual for Ben and Frankie to run off in the distance, they chase each other and then come back for treats every now and again. On this occasion Frankie came back but not Ben. We could see him about 300yds away just standing looking at something, I could see a light colour and immediately thought it was another or the very same seal. The other thing and a more scary thought was that it was a lump of Palm Oil, which is poisonous to dogs, luckily Ben had a his muzzle on so couldn't really eat anything.

Suzy tried to coax him away with the threat of a piece of liver cake but even that didn't work, she approached Ben with intrepidation and when she reached the scene it all went very quiet.

It was neither a seal or a lump of rock, it was dead dog.

Lots of things went through our minds, we were 400yds out from the shore, not sure about the tide, it comes in fast. We had four dogs running about, the car was half a mile away, we had no means of retrieving the dog. I decided to post it up on facebook there and then, I am a member of a lost and found pet group in Southport and I thought they may be able to help and advise. Within minutes it had been shared in 6 other similar groups and we were advised to try and get him to a vets where they could scan him and see if we could possibly locate the owner.

We took the dogs back to the car, found a bin liner on the beach and Suzy walked back out to collect the body. We went straight to our vet who took him and did what they do best, act quickly and took over the situation.

Later that day it appeared on facebook that the dogs name was Charlie and had been lost at Lytham St Annes some six weeks previous. It had been chipped and the vet contacted the owner, who had been frantic and put notices up all over the place and on several lost and found sites. Charlie was a white Jack Russel with one eye and was a bit of a monkey by all accounts.

The vet rang me and asked if I would speak to the owner, he just wanted to say thanks and was sad about his dog but on the other hand happy that he finally could stop worrying about what had happened to him, he actually though he had been stolen.

It would be really nice if you could just go for a normal dog walk!

Talking of dogs and our pack. We still have little Leo who seems to be destined to stay in Southport, not one inquiry about him which is strange, we are not that fussed as he's a lovely lad and no trouble whatsoever, he fits in nicely with our gang and to tell you the truth Suzy would have a job letting him go.

We have just added to the total with the arrival of Bear, so now we have a super Six pack! Bear is the brother of Harry, one of the pups born in the Rumanian forest, he went to Kent to be fostered but just hasn't been able to settle to life in the UK, we were asked if we could help having had a bit of success with similar rescue dogs and and being Harry's brother we had to say yes. More of Bear in the next instalment but lets just say he's a work in progress for now.