Errol was sighted yet again this morning. Jonette writes in from Meridian:
Pam Adams, the woman with the horse, saw him at 5:05 AM this morning at the end of George Butler rd about 1/8th of a mile before it intersects with Long Creek Rd. He was trotting down the road but went into the woods. Apparently he loves the woods these days. She said his legs are caked with red dirt but his body not so much. He looks healthy. I missed him by about 15 minutes.
Jonette must return to Hope tomorrow morning, but Amber Holmes is heading to Meridian tonight. The plans are for Jonette to show Amber the sighting locations in the morning while Jonette looks for Errol one last time this trip. Then Amber, who will be bringing both of her Irish Wolfounds, will camp out with her hounds somewhere in the area hoping that Errol will smell or hear the familiar scents and sounds and find his way to the camp.
Here’s hoping that he is reunited with his family soon!
We are SO excited. We got a call from a lady this morning reporting that Errol was in her yard seeking out shade. She lives on Long Creek which is in the area we’ve been focusing on. The sighting was 8:30 and 9:00 this morning. The lady called Donna Harrison, but Errol had already left before she could arrive. Jonette is in route to Meridian from Hope as I type this update, so a sighting couldn’t have come at a better time. We were starting to wonder if he was still in the same area.
Check out the IWCA lost IW page to see the new printable black and white poster. We want people to be reminded that Errol is still out there, so in effort to refresh peoples’ minds the poster has been revamped with new photos and a slightly different layout to help grab peoples’ attention even if they’ve seen the old one.
Jonette posted the following in response to someone’s question the news worthiness of Errol’s story to the Meridian people:
Errol’s family would like to thank the entire Meridian community for their help, generosity, and warm wishes for Destiny and Errol. Also to WTOK and the Meridian Star for their continued support and efforts in the search for Errol. These news stories are going out not just nationally but internationally via the internet to the Irish Wolfhound community and dog lovers everywhere. The world really is watching Meridian, MS in hopes of a happy ending. As Destiny continues to recover, her one wish is for Errol’s safe return home. Destiny is determined to return to Meridian in the near future to personally help in the search for her best friend. Again a big thank you Meridian from the Steppin’wolf family. Jonette Jones, Errol’s breeder and co-owner (and Destiny’s aunt. :0)
You, too can voice your thanks to WTOK and the people of Meridian who have continued to keep their eyes and their hearts open. Simply go to the lasted news coverage from WTOK and post your comment in support of their continued coverage of Errol’s story!
Today the local T.V. News reported again on Errol. Lindsey Brown, who did the last two stories on Errol, reported to viewers in Meridian that Errol was still missing and that Destiny was now out of the hospital again.
Thank you Lindsey and all those at WTOK for your continued support!
Well, we lost Tootsie last night. She just slipped quietly away during the evening after turning down her dinner for the first time in her life. A vibrant and joyful girl, Tootsie was happy every day of her life until the very end. Happy and bouncy at 3pm, quiet and not eating at 6pm, gone in the wee hours. I wish they could all go that way.
Destiny is in surgery today and we’re not telling her until tomorrow. Tootsie was Destiny’s junior handler dog. Destiny put a group placement on her when Destiny was 11. The timing here is not good. But we don’t get to choose these things do we? If Tootsie had a theme song it would be somewhere between “Ode to Joy” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”. Our house will be a lot emptier without her.
Jonette
Steve Gillespie has written a fourth article about the Errol Search Mission for the Meridian Star. The continued press has been very helpful in keeping people local to the area alert of Errol and Destiny’s situation and is greatly appreciated.
Thank you Steve and all those at the Meridian Star!!
**Note: the caption to the photo of the latest article reads, “
Destiny is back in the hospital. This time at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. The doctor’s are working to fight an infection in her wounds. The next step for Destiny will probably be skin grafts and physical therapy. All of this will take time, but she is excepted to fully recover from her injuries.
Now on to her dog, Errol. Jonette returned to Meridian on Thursday the 17th, but must return to our home in Hope, AR today. Jonette, joined by the local rescue people Donna Robinson and Sharon Moore, has looked for Errol morning and evenings since her arrival, but no one heard or saw Errol during that time. The lack of sightings or information about Errol is sad and disappointing. It’s been five days since anyone has reported seeing him and that is worrisome. Today, Donna is working on recontacting some people and also getting information to some others like the public works street crews and the golf course folks. She is also contacting an animal behaviorist in Colorado about Errol and his patterns of movement. Are these normal patterns for a dog that was in a bad car wreck?? We don’t know, but hopefully the behaviorist will shed some light on Errol’s behavior.
If you know of anyone that might be interested in updates on the search for Errol please feel free to forward them our link. The more people that know about Errol and Destiny’s story, the better our changes are of finding our beloved pet.
Thanks to you all,
Sadly, Jonette and Amber must return home today and they will be doing so without Errol. We now must look to those in Meridian to continue our search efforts as it is unsure when we will be able to come back again. Please help if you can.
Errol’s son Pharaoh along with his owner Toni, Toni’s sister Michelle, and Toni’s 4 year old wolfhound, Caesar, have come to help the Errol Search Team. With a poster reading, “Have You Seen My Daddy - He Is Lost”, the newest additions to the team have been at Petco with the handouts showing the community what an Irish Wolfhound looks like. The hope is to not only raise awareness of Destiny and Errol’s story, but to help limit the number of calls from people seeing smaller dogs. People need to know that Errol is not merely a large breed dog, but a GIANT breed!
WTOK ran a third story on the local news today. Yesterday’s story was cut from the 10:00 news due to an error, so they refreshed the 2dogs2000miles angle and ran the story again today throughout the day with the correct information.
Here’s a picture of the new members to the team:
Pharaoh is the IW on the right while his housemate Caesar is on the left.
We got an early start again today, waking up at 4:30 a.m. Started with the usual driving around the area of the last sighting hoping to catch him on the move at the break of light and in the cool of the morning. This was followed by stuffing mailboxes in the area with our handouts. We easily passed out all of the handouts printed yesterday and have printed off 520 more updated ones. The handouts were updated to include a new reward price.
Through generous donations, the reward fund in Errol’s name has grown to $1,000. We are so very appreciative of each and every contribution. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to each person or family who has contributed!
Murphy, Hudson, and Luke have gotten Errol’s story continued media attention. The Median Star has once again printed a story on the front cover of the daily news. The third article explains how the boys from 2dogs2000miles have taken a break from their mission to help us find Errol and calls for any locals who may want to volunteer to please contact us. We are very fortunate to have gotten a front page in the local news three days in a row now. In addition, the local t.v. news station, WTOK, has run another angle of our story including the 2dogs2000mile crew. Lindsey Brown set up an interview with Luke and then they got some footage of Luke, the boys, Jonette, and Amber walking and delivering flyers to mailboxes in Meridian. All of the media exposure has been a true blessing. However, having no sightings is getting extremely frustrating and we are just holding on to hope that something good will come up soon.
