Get Bunny Home - Missing Newfoundland Pup

We are fundraising to assist with the current search campaign for getting Bunny Home.

Bunny is a 1 year old Newfoundland pup owned by my very good friend, Emma Bone of Newfangled Newfoundlands kennel.

Bunny was due to be competing in her first crufts competition this weekend but sadly on 5th March 2024 she was let out of her garden in Bellingham, Northumberland. Her home is in a very rural area, just 5 minutes inside the beautiful Northumberland National Park.

She was last seen being chased by armed men on quad bikes.

We have had several search parties out, two Drone flights and sniffer/tracking dogs have also been called in.

Any help greatly received

Timeline -

On Tuesday the 5th March 2024, I was preparing Bunny and a couple of my dogs to take to competition at Crufts.

Someone opened our garden gate and let three of our dogs loose. We noticed this at 16:13pm as I was on the phone to a friend and told her I had to go. That is why I have the exact time stamp.

One of the dogs (our older male) stayed on the road outside of our home and the two young girls went running off to the stream and in to the hills/fields to the west of our home.

Mark (my husband) jumped in the car and hurried to get them back. I had to stay home because of our two young children.

I watched in the distance as one farmer on a quad was chasing the dogs (video 16:20pm).

The girls (Bunny and True) then came running back towards my husband and our home direction. True came to my husband but, Bunny got spooked and ran off.

I grabbed a soaking wet (had been swimming in the steam) True from my husband. Then he jumped in his car to retrieve Bunny. Suddenly (16:23pm) one of the farmers, who was extremely aggressive, begun shouting at my husband. He claimed that he had two dead sheep, due to my dogs. Following this, he then tried to obstruct Mark from going to retrieve Bunny by blocking the road with his 4 wheeler

(video 16:22pm).

Getting away just moments later, Mark was frantically searching for Bunny. Bunny was now unbeknownst to us greeting a neighbour in her garden and no longer on the neighbouring farm land.

At 16:47pm, the farmers son posted a video of Bunny and True sniffing the ground around what appeared to be a deceased sheep. There were no other sheep around in the video.

The comments were extremely aggressive with many farmers and friends suggesting he should shoot the dogs/dog.

Within 1h 30 minutes, four men on quads appeared whizzing around fields. But, this time one had a shot gun and pulled up to our house saying she needed to die because she “had a taste for it”, she would kill again! I called 999. This was at 18:06pm. We was terrified for our Bunny.

So to recap they had came back out 1.5 hours later from the incident - despite no sheep being worried to hunt and kill Bunny. Despite the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, the farmers were hunting for Bunny on land with no sheep present and land that did not belong to them. Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to dogs. Even if she was worrying livestock (which she was not) the use of a shotgun, while chasing the dog on quad bike in an attempt to kill is a breach of this act. The use of these tools is inhumane and would have terrified her.

According to the National Sheep Association 2021, the farmers should have exhausted all other avenues before resorting to hunting our innocent puppy. This was definitely not the case. His sheep were not in any immediate danger and his actions were not reasonable under the circumstances.

The initial call to 999 dropped out after a minute or so and redialled again as the four men on quads were wizzing around empty fields with a gun to kill my dog.

At approximately 9pm, once the police had been, a friend arrived to care for our children while we set on foot with torches in the dark to search for Bunny. Within 5 minutes of entering the field, we found a dead sheep (9:14pm). She had been dead a long time. The grass under her dying, having been starved of light for so long. There was no signs of attack, no blood, no wool lying around. This is exactly like the sheep Bunny and True were next to in the video posted by the farmer on social media.

The farmer was asked to produce the worried sheep bodies, but he did not do so. We strongly insisted to pay for a post mortem to be carried out on the dead sheep. The farmer ignored us.

There was no worried sheep!

My dog is a Newfie, a sweet natured dog bred for water reacue. Raises with lifestock and as sweet as honey.

Bunny is innocent and we are terrified they have hurt her as no actual sightings have been reported!

We are searching for Bunny, we are searching for fresh grave sites, we are searching for answers.