Elephant’s foot and divining rods used in hunt for lost dog
DOZENS of volunteers joined the hunt for a terrier possibly lost down rabbit holes at Ganavan Sands last week, deploying a ferret, tinned beef, divining rods, a pipe camera and shovels.
Now a £ 500 reward has been pledged to anyone who finds two-year- old Rowan, a ‘small, fluffy, black and white’ Jack Russell/ Patterdale cross, who failed to return to the calls of her owner, Sandra Muir, during a walk on the town’s beach.
‘She has never run away before,’ said Sandra, who moved to Oban from Jura. ‘She’s really interested in holes and is the friendliest dog you could meet. Our hearts are broken without her.
‘We’ve dug up the hillside. It’s a horrible nightmare. Thanks to everyone who has helped and continues to do so.’
Sandra and her partner, Lee Williamson, launched the desperate search for Rowan last Tuesday after she went missing at about 9.30am. They also put out an appeal on Facebook and the family were soon joined by friends shouting Rowan’s name down Ganavan’s rabbit holes.
Lee said: ‘There was no sound. She is not a yapping dog. We recorded the doorbell and played it down the holes so she would yap. We brought Sandra’s other dog (Hollie). It went to that spot and started digging like mad. She usually does not dig, so we took that as a clue.’
Oban roofer Malcolm Kerr heard about the appeal and got four of his men out digging.
‘He is a big dog lover,’ his stepson Jason Goldie said. ‘So am I.
‘If it was his dog, he would like to think other people would do the same.’ More diggers from piping contractor D&K Lafferty also arrived early on Friday morning with a pipe camera borrowed from Scottish Water.
During the week the search team were offered free use of a JCB digger and an underground listening device called an ‘elephant’s foot’, and on Friday more children arrived with beach spades, alongside men armed with a ferret and divining rods.
An elderly lady was overheard to offer: ‘I’ve brought a tin of beef and I’ve got a shovel in my car.’
All efforts, so far, have failed to locate Rowan. If you have any information on her whereabouts, contact Sandra via her Facebook page.