Anyone in Derbyshire? scared, stray dog - Inra - can you look out?

lauralicious

I'm sitting here with my wee dog and wondering how anyone can be so cruel to a any animal. I hope the poor wee man is found soon and can finally learn that not all humans are bad. Sending out happy thoughts for him...

xxx

foreign_correspondent

hmm, although Inra was rehomed by the RSPCA just before he ran away, they were not involved in any practical sense with the search, but did have his details online and in their lost pets page... however, I have realised that the RSPCA website has now removed poor old Inra's photos and details.

I hope this does not give anyone the impression that he has been found, because he has not.

1sue23

A dog can survive for a long time in the wild ,in Stourbridge where I lived many years ago we had a german Shepherd dog who lived very happily on his own he had made himself a den and people put food out for him ,he lived like this for at least 5 years was very nervous but not nasty ,but would run a mile if you tried to catch him ,he loved to go courting and would spend days outside a house for the chance meeting of the female dog living there he always looked healthy and well fed and had a lovely coat on him ,Maybe Inra is lying low somewhere in shelter and there will be more sightings when the weather picks up a bit.

Indefatigable_2

Hi, I’m the Danny who’s mentioned here as one of the contact-people in the search for Inra. I’ve just been reading this thread and thought I’d better add a post to it so as to clear up a few points.

The media have actually been very supportive - not just local papers but also radio and TV. I’ve twice been invited onto local radio and also appeared on TV, banging the drum for poor Inra. They’ve definitely helped us as much as they realistically can, so really it’d be a non-starter to approach them again until there’s some really substantial news about him. There’s nothing I can tell them at present that’d genuinely count as newsworthy in their eyes (though I know they’d be very interested, pleased and attentive if we were able to tell them we’d found Inra at long last). Ultimately, Inra is merely a lost dog - one of many, many hundreds - and it’s been very kind of the media to give us what coverage they’ve given us, bless ‘em.

The last sighting of Inra that was absolutely 100% reliable was at Smalley in September 2008. The dog’s appearance and behaviour matched Inra’s completely and the witness already knew all about him and had seen his photograph.

In November there was a whole slew of dog-sightings in the Belper area: black dogs, black-and-white dogs, black-and-brown dogs. One or two of the black ones sounded as if they might possibly have been Inra, but the witnesses were never able to supply really precise details and the dog wardens in the area had long been aware that there had been various black or part-black dogs wandering in the locality for weeks or even months. I undertook a couple of all-night vigils in Belper in places which it was thought a dog might be frequenting in the hours of darkness, but only cats and foxes were to be seen.

The Ambergate sightings in late November/early December seemed promising. The third of the three sightings wasn’t solid enough to merit inclusion (a black dog seen in the woods by a passing motorist....the dog’s owner may simply have been out of view), but the first sighting was far more detailed and certain aspects of the dog’s appearance and behaviour really did seem to tally. The witness at the second sighting was much less able to provide details, but it seemed fair to bracket it together with the first sighting since it came only a few days later in the same woodland.

Since then, there have been no black dog sightings with any reassuring substance to them that would indicate we were definitely dealing with Inra. The sighting mentioned in this thread as having taken place a few miles west of Ambergate was actually only a sighting of a black-and-white dog, who by definition could not have been Inra, who is a plain black dog except for the grey hairs around his nose and mouth.

As our search has progressed, we’ve become all too aware that the countryside is full of mysterious dogs, whether lost or feral. Phone calls have come from all points of the compass - and of course we’re only hearing about the black or part-black dogs, so I assume there must be white, brown, red, golden, liver and grey dogs wandering forlornly as well. Earlier this week, I spent an hour slithering around in muddy, part-flooded farm fields in the drizzle after receiving a call from a lady who’d just seen a black, medium-sized Labrador-type dog plodding about all on its own. The dog turned out to be a pub landlord’s dog that had only been missing since the previous night - but it clearly illustrates how very difficult it is to get a real fix on Inra, no matter how swiftly we respond to phoned-in sightings.

Some of you may already be aware that, sadly, attempts have recently been made by a person living in the Belper area to pass on deliberately misleading information about the dog’s appearance to members of the public and to the local media. The same person has also claimed that Inra has been sighted in locations where he hasn’t been seen. The person tries to tell anyone who will listen that Inra is a black-and-white dog, long coated and that he is not in fact part Labrador at all, when actually he is plain black, instantly recognisable as part Labrador and was flat-coated when lost in March 2008. To the small group of volunteers who have spent weeks and months hand-delivering 14,000 leaflets to homes and businesses across the region explaining how to recognise Inra, this is very upsetting indeed. It also threatens to cancel out the help we’ve been lucky enough to receive from the local media. Should you encounter anyone who has fallen victim to this deliberate attempt to sabotage this poor dog’s chances of being found, do please put them straight.

It’s worth mentioning that the dog referred to as Inra’s brother is not actually known to be genetically related to him. The two dogs were simply found by the RSPCA living together in the same circumstances. They do not resemble one another closely, nor is there any known reason why they should.

With the very cold night-time temperatures of recent weeks has come a drastic falling-away of reported sightings of black or part-black dogs. With no burrows to take refuge in, the dogs (including Inra) may indeed be perishing from a mixture of exposure and starvation, though no reports of dead black dogs have reached me recently. I had always hoped that desperation in the face of such conditions might force Inra to overcome his fears and approach humans for food - and I like to think that this may indeed have happened and that he may have been taken in by people who know nothing of his story.

But sadly the truth is that what has become of Inra since September 2008 is unknown. I firmly believe that we have done and are continuing to do everything we realistically can to try to find and help him. The problem has always been that Inra is a dog who doesn’t want to be found and who doesn’t know what help is. He’s made up his mind about humans long since and only in extremis would he consider giving them the benefit of the doubt. He may be alive, he may be dead. If alive, he may have wandered so far that he’s disappeared completely off the radar..

There is, however, a chance that he’s actually quite happy being a feral dog, free of the human race’s attentions at long last. A hard life it may be, but for all that he may be the happiest he’s ever been. Perhaps we should respect that. And if he can survive this winter, he can survive another.

One thing is for certain. In a year’s time I will still be receiving phonecalls about sightings of mysterious black dogs. Even if Inra is dead, the calls will continue to flow in, because black dogs will alas continue to wander the countryside. By this time next week, I’ll almost certainly have received another call about a black dog. But what we really need is another 100% definitive sighting of Inra. Without it, we can assume nothing whatever.

Please Note: The RSPCA Centre ceased to be a point of contact for Inra-related phonecalls last August. The main contact number now is 07758 709337.

Thank you all so much for caring about this dog and his plight. I used to walk him when he was living at the Derby RSPCA Centre and the poor frightened creature really touched my heart. I just hope that wherever he is now, he’s reasonably content.

foreign_correspondent

Hello Danny, thanks so much for joining us on here - it is really useful to hear an update straight 'from the horses mouth' so to speak - please do keep popping in and updating us if there is any 'new' news.

I was under the impression that the Ambergate/shining cliff woods sightings were pretty reliable - I was told workmen had seen him at the little crossroads by the beekepers place, and the next day I met an elderly couple who lived in a bungalow just up the way who saw a dog they were pretty certain was Inra (wearing a red collar etc) about five minutes after the sighting by the workmen?

Anyway, good to see you on here Danny, please do pop back when you can and keep us up to date!

Best wishes

p.s. having looked at a photo of Inra and his brother (or pal) online I have to agree they do show a resemblance to each other but are very different dogs (as litter mates can be), so we have to go on what we know Inra looks like, not what the other dog looks like!!
I am sure Danny is best qualified to know what he looks like as he is the one person who has sent a lot of time with Inra in the flesh!

pps. Danny if you would like any info added to the facebook page please do let me know, thanks

RacyRed

Thanks for the update Danny.

What you say about Inra maybe now being the happiest he has ever been, as a feral dog, really struck a chord with me. We don't always know what is best.

Lets hope that Inra is alive and happy out there, I'm keeping myself positive about Inra by thinking that maybe he has disappeared from view because he has found doggy companionship and is content living the life he chose for himself, whatever that may bring.

hethmar

Is he on dogslost website?

foreign_correspondent

he is hethmar - he wasnt till this week, but he is now!

thanks though - any ideas are gratefully received!