Legal battle over missing dog

Apr 6 2008 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

A FAMILY’S beloved pet dog is at the centre of a legal battle after it was given to new owners just weeks after going missing.

Buster the Border Collie disappeared from the back garden of his North home without his collar to identify him.

Owner Lauren Seed, 19, and dad Robert reported the matter to police but were told no dogs had been handed in.

After a frantic search by the family came to nothing, they eventually spotted the seven-year-old pet in a magazine appealing for readers to give it a new home.

Yet when Lauren went to the Newcastle Cat and Dog Shelter, which placed the ad, she was told the dog had a new family who didn’t want to give him back. Now she’s employed a solicitor to help get the dog she raised from a pup returned.

Lauren, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, said: “The family has not been the same since he went missing. I feel let down by the police and the cat and dog shelter who between them have failed to reunite us with our pet.

“I hope that the people who rehoused Buster will understand how distressing this has been for the family, and no doubt for Buster too, and consider returning him.”

Buster vanished last May and the family have since discovered police found him soon after, taking him to the shelter on May 26, where he was named Skye.

He was featured in the October edition of the magazine, Pick Me Up, but when Lauren and Robert went to the shelter they were told he had been rehoused two months earlier. Their solicitor, Andrew Williamson of the law firm Ben Hoare Bell, revealed a complaint had been lodged with Northumbria Police.

He said: “My client’s much-loved pet is now someone else’s and the whole situation could and should have been avoided.

“Although the new owners have not acted illegally we can’t contact them to discuss the issue or take up the option of a civil action as the cat and dog shelter has refused to give the names of the new owners to ourselves or the police.”

Lauren’s dad Robert said: “Buster was like part of the furniture in our family and we all loved him dearly.

“The shelter won’t tell us the new owners’ names but, on our behalf, they contacted them and asked if they could show some compassion and give him back. But they say they bought him in good faith and want to keep him.

“If we were talking about a stolen car that had been found it would be returned quite easily, and the same should apply here.”

A Northumbria Police spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that a complaint was received and is being investigated.”

V Are you Buster’s new owners? If so, we’d like to hear your side of the story. Call us on 0191-201 6331 or email scoop.sundaysun@ncjmedia.co.uk