A very sad tale. By Bessie

A sad story.    Last Monday Mummy, Daddy, Katie and me went to do a home check in the valleys.   It was a good home check and Blod and her daddy passed (and they came to our house on Saturday to get Blod's new brother but that's another story).   On the way back Mummy was driving when she suddenly slams the brakes on and shouts "Oh my god there's a Basset in the road."   Mummy and Daddy both jumped out the car.   Mummy ran down the road cos there was another Basset running and Daddy ran to the Basset lay in the road.   She had been hit by a van and we think she must have died instantly.   The van driver said the two of them just ran out from nowhere.   A lady stopped and got a blanket out of her car.   Daddy carried the little girl Basset to the grass verge and wrapped her in the blanket.

In the meantime Mummy ran after the little boy Basset.  He must have suddenly realised that his sister wasn't running with him any more so he stopped to look for her and Mummy grabbed his harness.   Katie got the spare slip lead out of the car (we always keep a spare lead for emergencies like this) and they put him on the lead but didn't take him back to where his sister was cos they didn't want to frighten him.     Then Mummy phoned the police on the second emergency number, told them what had happened and they put her on hold for 5 minutes.   Then the man came back and said the police aren't going to attend but did she get the registration of the van?  She said the van driver is still here, he didn't drive off.  All the police were bothered about was getting his registration so in the end the van driver said "give the phone to me, let me talk to them."  So he gave the police all the info about the accident and then he gave the phone back to Mummy.   So again he says they are not going to attend the scene.   "So what am I supposed to do with these dogs?"  says Mummy.    He said the highways agency would pick the girl up 'within the next few hours' and she should take the boy home as the dog warden closes at 5pm and it's about 8pm by now.

So she says OK she will take both dogs home.  She will take them to our vets and get their microchips checked and then go from there (both dogs were wearing harnesses but not collars or tags).     Her and the van driver are just about to exchange phone numbers in case they find out who owns the dogs when a man comes down the hill and says they are his dogs, they were walking off lead and the dogs ran off.   The dogs are 15 month old littermates called George and Wilma.    So he takes George home and says he is coming back for Wilma and we all go home and my humans are all very tearful.

We were very cross with the police's attitude though.  What if Mummy hadn't stopped?  What if the owner hadn't turned up?  What if there had been nobody who could take George home?