On the 10 July 2024 we became aware of a stray dog in Mossley OL3 when we were contacted by members of the public to help. At the time we were trapping another abandoned stray dog but we gave advice and were able to start helping the following day.
She was first seen (as far as we know) on the 9 July in Mossley, in Tameside, then Bardsley, Oldham, the following day. She had travelled approximately 5 miles. People had been trying to catch her which made her run and leave the area.
She then was seen in Failsworth M35 then got onto the motorway on the 13 July at junction 22 of the M60 and she ran along it until junction 20 at Blackley M9 then back on the motorway again and she came off at junction 19 at Heaton Park. Highways Agency attended and the matrix signs went on to slow traffic down. Numerous people got out of their vehicles to try to catch her. She did this again the following day from junction 20 to 19 then back again to junction 20. When she came off the motorway each time people tried to catch her which made her panic even more. She had learned that on the motorway there were no people (in her eyes) who kept going after her so she got back onto the motorway the following day. Highways agency stopped the traffic and managed to get hold of her. Sadly though she got away (we are not sure what exactly happened). She ran down to junction 20 and ran down Rochdale Rd where, at the busy main junction of Victoria Ave, she was hit by a car. Reports said that she screamed, and ran. A vehicle then chased her for 2 miles until they lost sight of her. In between all of this, she was seen in Middleton and Alkrington and was chased and approached. She just wasn’t allowed to settle by well meaning people who didn’t understand that she was a dog in flight mode and all these people trying to catch her were predators to her who, in her mind, wanted to hurt her.
Then it all went quiet and we didn’t hear of any sightings for 5 days which was a really worrying time.
On the 19 July, we had a sighting on the Middleton side of junction 20. Then on the Manchester side at various points along Rochdale Rd. We couldn’t put feed stations down with cameras because she was all over the place being seen in various locations. All we could do was to get sightings removed from social media (some people were purposely going out and searching for her), track her movements and try to help people to understand that in order for her to be caught, she needed to be allowed to settle in one place.
The sightings continued the following day until it all went quiet again and we had no sightings for 4 days. Then, on Thursday 25 July, we got our breakthrough. She had been seen raiding the bins (bin day in Manchester) on a street near Boggart Hole Clough. Tina, a wonderful lady who I met, saw her at around 5am and managed to take a photo of her. We asked that this wasn’t put on social media and that her sighting was kept quiet. We desperately needed her to stay whereever she had found for her safe place so we could get to work humanely trapping her. A lady had also seen her a little while later further up going into Boggart Hole Clough near the playground. I headed there straight away and placed feed stations in the area. There were no more sightings that day and she didn’t appear on camera.
On Friday, 26 July, she was seen by a lady whose dog disappeared into some woods in Boggart Hole. She went after her dog and saw our girl lying down hiding. This lady left her alone then saw our poster and phoned us. Again we asked, as we did for every sighting reported to us, that nothing was put onto social media so we could keep her safe and keep her there so we could trap her. I went there and did a scent trail from where she had been seen to the nearest feed station. This was just less than a quarter of a mile away but there was nowhere else suitable nearer to her to place a feed station for various reasons.
Several hours later, On Saturday, at 4.57am, this beautiful girl found our feedstation and ate every single morsel of food. She was ravenous. She then trotted off. Finally we were so close to getting her safe!
Myself and Pat both assembled the supertrap where the feedstation was later that day and then sat up all night in our cars waiting. She didn’t show up. We went home in the morning deflated and very tired.
Sunday, 28 July, Tina very kindly offered me the use of her camper van during that night so I could actually get some rest while again waiting for our girl to show up at the trap. It was another long night, with a certain cat who had been having a feast on and off both nights, in the trap, setting off the motion controlled cameras. I’ve never known a cat to eat so much and so often!
Eventually I dozed off only to again be woken by the cameras going off but this time, it was our girl! She showed up at 5.31am and circled the trap. On Monday 29 July, at 5.35am, the scent of the food was just too much for her and in she went. As she started to tuck into the feast, and was safely at the back of the trap, I pressed the button on my app which controls the door on the trap, the door shut and she was finally safe.
And now for the heartbreaking part of her journey. People who had seen her when she was running reported her to be a boy because it looked like she had boy parts dangling. Once she had calmed down after I got to the trap, and Pat arrived to help, I got inside the trap with her so I could get leads on her. She, at first, understandably was very fearful and warned me not to go near her. But, after a while I earned her trust and went in. She came straight to me and cuddled against me, licking my face. As I stroked her I felt under her belly (it was obvious she was a girl as she had very saggy prominent teats and had been a breeding machine with whoever had abandoned her) and felt a large lump bigger than my hand further back. I then got under her to look. She had a large, infected, bleeding mammory tumour. She kept having a go at it and it was obviously causing her a lot of discomfort and pain. She also had a cauliflower ear. She had been running so much and so far, for nearly 3 weeks at least, not only having to avoid people (predators) trying to catch her and having to swerve past driving vehicles, being hit by a vehicle then being chased by one for two miles, finding food, water and safe shelter, suffering from the hot weather, being abandoned, but had to suffer from the pain and discomfort of a large mammory tumour and a painful swollen cauliflower ear. We believe that when she ended up in Blackley after running down the motorway that she had been trying to get back to where she had originally been seen and looking for her ‘owner’ who had very obviously abandoned her. We had no one come forward to claim that she belonged to them. She had clearly been neglected and once she had made her owner some money by producing litter after litter, was discarded like a piece of trash. No thought was put into her safety or well being and nothing was done to alleviate her suffering with the tumour and her ear. She also had missing front bottom teeth which indicated that she had spent a lot of time trying to bite through a cage. She had been on a long journey, travelling 11 miles initially, not to count the mileage she had done in between.
We had to wait until Manchester Dogs’ Home opened at 9am so I sat with her in the back of my car for quite a while. This beautiful girl came to trust me very quickly and cuddled up to me while lay there. It was probably the first time she had been cool (the air con was on), with a full belly, and maybe the first time she had experienced a human’s love.
