MY SEARCH FOR BEAU
This is a photo of my boy when he was young, approximately 12 months old. You might notice his heart-shaped nose and the sweetness in his face.
Beau came to me at a time when I was seriously ill and he helped me recover from my illness. Beau came to me because of the kindness and genuine concern of my doctor, who is a truly wonderful woman. Beau loved me from the moment he looked at me. Beau 'knew' so much about me, even though he was 'only a 4 months old puppy'.
Beau gave me his love, his trust, his loyalty and his humour without expecting anything from me in return.
My heart aches for Beau just as much today as the day he was stolen on 1 July 2003.
I wondered how I was going to survive 4 hours without Beau and now more than 4 years 9 months have passed since I have seen my little boy. Beau and I have an extraordinary connection and I still feel his energy right beside me.
If Beau had died from natural causes, this would have devastated me, but I would have known where Beau was and that no human could ever hurt him.
People who criticise me for continuing to search for Beau are really criticising me for loving my dog so much. They do not understand because they have never known such love.
Love has no boundaries.
Nothing will ever make right what has happened to Beau. Some semblance of justice will prevail when I find Beau alive. He will then be safe and no one will ever be able to harm him again.
Beau was taken away from me because of the greed, dishonesty and inhumanity of human beings.
The enormous benefits dogs give us are recognised. However, this is completely cast aside if the dog is stolen, or the dog gets lost and is not found in a short period of time.
Stolen dogs (all stolen animals) are the forgotten group in our society in Australia. They do not have a voice.
When I came home from work on 1 July 2003 and Beau was gone, I knew something terrible had happened to him. I knew Beau would never leave his home willingly. I could not sit back and do nothing. I could not allow a criminal to trespass into our home, traumatise my family and myself, and steal and destroy Beau, who is one of my dearest friends in my life.
It did not take me long to realise that there was no support system in place in Australia to help me find Beau. I thought very seriously about what to do and I decided that if I did not spend a lot of money on advertising to try to reach as many people as I could, I had no chance of ever seeing Beau again. I re-financed my mortgage so I had money available for a Large Reward and for advertising, etc.
I borrow money to keep my motor vehicle on the road. Beau is worth much more to me than my motor vehicle.
Beau did not choose to get stolen.
From memory, I think I borrowed another $45,000 and I was prepared to offer the majority of this as a Reward for the safe return of my beloved Beau. Obviously I had to use some of this money for advertising, flyers, petrol, etc.
However I was constantly talked out of stating a Reward amount by organisations involved in locating lost animals and classified advertising staff for a number of reasons, one of which was that I would attract hoax callers. This happened anyway and I was in fact plagued by hoax callers because of the extent of my advertising.
This is the first advertisement I placed for Beau on 2 July 2003, the day after Beau was stolen.
You will note I have stated "HUGE REWARD for return. No questions asked".
You would think people would realise by "HUGE", I meant I would pay a great deal, but "HUGE" means different things to different people.
I believe "$40,000" would have made a greater impact than "HUGE", maybe not.
However, I realise now that if I had offered a $40,000 Reward when Beau was first stolen, this would have attracted major media attention and word about Beau would have reached so many people, far more people than I could possibly reach, even advertising several times a week in several newspapers and magazines.
I knew TIME was critical.
I was desperate to find Beau as quickly as I possibly could. If I were wealthy I would have offered a $1 MILLION Reward for the safe return of Beau.
I was panic-stricken. Beau is so soft natured, so vulnerable; he loved me so much; he loved his family and his home so much. Beau would have coped very badly. He would have been so frightened, so confused. Where was his mum ??? His mum always protected him and kept him safe. I was so worried whoever had Beau might hurt him.
I made the best decisions I could at the time.
I literally flooded the Gold Coast and surrounding areas with advertising as well as displaying Beau's flyers and hammering up Beau's posters everywhere I went. I travelled day and night searching for Beau and spreading the word about the plight of Beau. One day I counted the number of kilometres I had travelled, and it was 832.
Within approximately 6 weeks after Beau was stolen, without any sightings of Beau despite all my advertising and the help of a local radio station and a Gold Coast City Council newsletter, I believed Beau had been taken away from the local area. So, I started advertising Australia wide.
It takes a great deal of time and money to search Australia wide for a 'missing' dog.
People assume I am wealthy. People assume a lot of things about other people they don't know, and their assumptions are usually wrong. Unfortunately this is human nature.
Dogs (all animals) don't assume anything.
I believed it was very likely that Beau would be taken to a veterinary practice at some point in time so I made the effort to write to every veterinary practice in Australia. It was a huge task and took me 12 months to complete and cost me thousands of dollars in postage and colour flyers.
Despite my desperate and genuine pleas for help, I received a 10% response from the veterinary practices.
I was devastated.
Beau is microchipped; he is a rare purebred dog and a very distinctive looking dog; he is a legally stolen dog; and I am and will always remain the legal owner of Beau. I am a responsible dog owner and a responsible member of the community.
I received the same response i.e. 10%, from council dog pounds, RSPCA animal shelters and private dog rescue organisations.
I did not expect this apathy.
Dealing with the trauma of what had happened to Beau was difficult enough. I pleaded with these organisations to keep in touch with me. I believed a brief response to my letters and emails was not a lot for me to expect. More importantly, I believed these organisations should not have thrown out Beau's information including his microchip number and his Police crime report number.
I was ignored. Beau, who is an innocent, defenceless dog, was ignored.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That is the essence of inhumanity. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Unfortunately more than 4 years 9 months later, despite spending tens of thousands of dollars, possibly even more than I was prepared to offer as a Reward in the beginning, distributing hundreds of thousands of flyers, hammering up thousands of laminated posters, travelling tens of thousands of kilometres day and night, I have still not found Beau.
I could not begin to tell you what I have done and what I continue to do to try to find Beau.
I will list a few things I have done.
I have advertised in major metropolitan and rural newspapers, in regional newspapers and in Canine Control Council Dog magazines throughout Australia continuously since 1 July 2003.
I have contacted every council dog pound, RSPCA animal shelter, veterinary practice and the majority of private dog rescue organisations in every State of Australia continuously since 1 July 2003.
Those council pounds, RSPCA animal shelters, veterinary practices, and private dog rescue organisations for which I have been able to locate an email address, I have emailed twice a year continuously since Beau was stolen on 1 July 2003.
I have contacted breeders, breed clubs, dog trainers, dog training clubs, dog groomers, pet shops .. every type of dog business .. Australia wide.
I have contacted every primary and secondary school in Queensland and the majority in New South Wales; every water carter in Queensland and New South Wales; every Pet Friendly accommodation owner in Australia.
I designed a 16 page website and spend hours on the internet each day trying to increase my website visitors, trying to list Beau on pet internet sites, and emailing organisations throughout Australia to try to spread the word about Beau.
Despite all that I have done, there has still not been one sighting of Beau.
At the start of 2007, I was at my wits end what to do next. Then a lady who had seen Beau's posters at Redland Bay in Brisbane phoned me. Her dog was stolen in 2006 and she was one of the fortunate ones because her dog was returned after she offered a Reward amount in advertising. The Police recommended she do this.
Because this was a Police recommendation, I decided to advertise a Reward amount in a major metropolitan and a major rural newspaper in every State of Australia.
I offered a $10,000 Reward for the safe return of Beau. I believed this was a generous Reward for a 6 year old dog who was past his prime. I hoped this large Reward would prompt more people to help me find Beau.
I wish I could have offered more. This was the most I could borrow after all the money I had spent on my search for Beau since 1 July 2003.
To give you an idea of advertising costs, this is an advertisement I placed in the Dogs Classified section of Queensland Country Life on 5 April 2007. The cost was $660. It would have been higher if I had placed the advertisement in the general section of the newspaper.
Every cent I have spent searching for Beau I have borrowed.
This might give you a little idea of how much Beau means to me.
Unfortunately offering the $10,000 Reward brought me no news of Beau and again I was plagued by nuisance and obscene phone calls and emails. In fact, I received again what I would describe as an 'emotional battering'.
At least I tried.
Despite the continued personal abuse and criticism I have received, in addition to being ignored, I have never given up and I have continued to do everything I possibly can to find Beau. The obstacles I face to find Beau are HUGE.
I had to withdraw the $10,000 Reward on 16 February 2008 because I ended up spending this money on my search for Beau. For instance, I spent more than $2,500 writing to every veterinary practice in Australia again to remind them about Beau.
I will keep going. I will never stop searching for my Beau and doing everything I possibly can to find my boy. He deserves this from me, at the very least.
I will also continue to hope that Beau will find his way to a decent human being who will do the right thing and help him come back home to his family and to me.
BEAU SUPPORTERS
Many wonderful people have joined me in my search for Beau and some of these people do not even own a dog. The kindness they have shown me is extraordinary. These people are young and old, male and female, come from all walks of life, and live all around the world. What we have in common is our sense of humanity and our love and respect for all life. I call these wonderful people my ‘Beau supporters’.
Many 'Beau supporters' have displayed flyers for me, listed Beau on their personal websites, visited their local veterinary practices and dog pounds, displayed Beau's flyer on their car window, etc.
I will provide two special examples, to represent all my 'Beau supporters'.
This is a photo of the Christmas cards Beau and I received in December 2006 from the Dogs with Blogs community.
Beau and I received cards from dogs who live all around the world .. in Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, America, Scotland, England and Australia.
We also received a Christmas card from Fu Fu who is an Honorary Member of the Dogs with Blogs community.
Fu Fu is a hamster who lives in Singapore. When I received the card from Fu Fu, it really broke me up. This was not because the other cards did not mean as much to me. This card from Fu Fu showed so strongly that Love has no boundaries.
I have been criticised by so many people in my own country of Australia for continuing to search for Beau. Yet a hamster, and his family from Singapore, showed their genuine love for Beau and myself. Words cannot describe how I felt.
This little hamster shows the humanity which so many humans in this world have lost.
I then joined the Dogs with Blogs community and started my own dog blog to spread the word about Beau. This dog blog community has shown me so much love and support and many have added links on their dog blogs to my website to help me find Beau.
The owners of these dogs do not know me and they do not know Beau. However, they genuinely care.
Sadly Fu Fu died on 12 May 2007. The grief and sadness felt by the Dogs with Blogs community was overwhelming. We had lost a very special friend who we loved very deeply. We did not care that Fu Fu was a hamster. We did not care that we lived on the other side of the world and had never met Fu Fu. All of us felt a huge sense of loss when Fu Fu died because we loved him so much.
Love is what matters in life. Love does not discriminate against hamsters and dogs and animals and humans.
This is what my search for Beau is about. It is a story of Love.
This photo shows Holly, Brandy and Millie. Their mum's name is Marion. Marion has been helping me find Beau and supporting me since July 2003, for 4 years 9 months now.
Even though Marion has health problems, she has 'gone the extra mile or thousands' for Beau and myself. She has displayed Beau's flyers wherever she goes; visits veterinary practices and animal shelters; scans the newspapers; is continually thinking of new ways to help me find Beau.
It was because of Marion that Daniel Fallon from The Sydney Morning Herald featured my website in their newspaper.
Even during her holidays away from Sydney, Marion displays Beau's flyers and visits veterinary practices wherever she goes. Her enthusiasm and faith in finding Beau has never wavered.
Marion typifies a 'Beau supporter'. Marion represents the best in human nature. This is not because Marion is a dog owner. This is because of the person she is.
My 'Beau supporters' matter to me. They represent all that is good and kind in this world.
My 'Beau supporters' are all responsible pet owners who are trying to do something in their own small way to help the plight of animals in this world, to save the natural environment, and to help the plight of humans in this world.
I believe if you are incapable of respecting animals and the natural environment in which you live, you are incapable of respecting other human beings.
Some humans think I'm 'over the top'; they think I'm 'a weirdo'; they think I don't 'have a life' because to them Beau is 'just a dog'. I do not care what these humans think. I do not want to live their lives.
If I knew Beau was safe and he was happy, I would be able to 'let go'. But I don't know this, and until I know this, I have to keep going for the love of my Beau because he deserves this from me at the very least.
Beau is not 'just a dog' to me. I could not begin to tell you what Beau has given to me, and any human who loves an animal knows exactly what I am saying. I continue to hope that somehow I will find Beau.
