COMMUNITY RALLY ROUND TO HELP FIND MISSING DOG
THE owners of a blind and elderly dog thought the worst when it was swept away by strong river currents during Storm Callum.
Owner Jeanette Hall, who lives in Abergorlech, near Carmarthen, said Ebony the 12-year-old labrador was swept away in the Afon Cothi at around 4.30pm on Monday.
“I want to highlight the area’s community spirit,” said Ms Hall. “I’ve lived here for 32 years. “Ebony got into the river at bottom of the garden and got swept away in this awful current.
“I got on to the local Facebook group, the Cothi Valley Group, with the intention of local people just looking out for her in case she happened to have fought her way out of the river and had got lost.
“Within a very short time the message was shared online by so many people.
“They immediately offered to help look, and rallied around to try and find her.”
Those who knew the waterway offered their suggestions for where Ebony might hopefully have become stuck.
“Before I knew it, I had rescue people offering to come with drones. The whole of the UK seemed to be replying.
“On Tuesday morning at 8am I had a phone call from the farmer who had looked the night before.
“They said they’d found her! Then there was silence – I thought they’d say they had found the dog’s body.
“But no, they’d found her in the woods.
“She had obviously been swept to the first bend in the river, and managed to make her way out of the water and just headed for the woods.”
She said Ebony was soaking wet but uninjured when she returned.
“Other than being soaking wet you wouldn’t know she’d had an adventure,” said Jeanette.
“I went back to the Facebook group to share the good news. Well-wishers came from everywhere on Facebook – for me that was the thing.
“When something like that happens it’s just amazing.
“I just can’t believe the support in the community.”