Before starting Greater Manchester Lost Dog Search & Rescue Capture Team C.I.C. I helped with lost dogs on an independent basis. In March 2018, one of these dogs that I humanely trapped I named Toby, and think that he deserves a mention. Toby, a stray dog, who I named, had travelled quite a distance in his adventures. He was seen at Tesco in Rochdale a few times then started to be seen in Brookdale Park in Failsworth. Then it seems he made his way back to Rochdale and ended up in Wardle where he seemed to finally feel safe so stayed there. Many people tried to catch him but he would just run and he soon became very good at evading capture.
I became involved as soon as Toby came to my attention. When I was able to track him down to where he was seen the most often in Wardle I went to the area to set a humane trap up. However, as I got there, I could see him slowly mooching around the field. There were people playing football on the field who weren’t bothering Toby so I proceeded to start to set up the trap. When he saw me I tried to hand catch him by enticing him with food. He was eating out of my hand and at one point I did try putting the slip lead on him but he was having none of that. He did keep coming back to me but I didn’t want to lose his trust so I didn’t try again with the lead. He was very interested in the food in the trap and I didn’t want to fill his tummy up with food by hand feeding him then him not be hungry enough to go into the trap so stopped hand feeding him. I sat inside my car and waited. Thankfully it didn’t take long before Toby decided enough was enough and he went into the trap to eat. The door closed and he was finally safe.
He was chipped but with Polish details and we were not able to find the owners details. Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary very kindly offered him a place so I took him home with me for the night and then took him to Bleakholt the following morning. Toby thrived at the sanctuary and 3 weeks later was rehomed to a lovely family.
