Pensioner devastated as pet dog one of two missing on ferry

A PENSIONER last night told of her heartbreak after her beloved pet dog and another one disappeared on the Swansea-Cork ferry.

Elspeth MacDougall, 70, last saw Scottish terrier Angus in a kennel on board last Tuesday’s night sailing of the vessel, but when she went to claim her pet the following day, she found the dog was missing along with a British couple’s Jack Russell.

Ms MacDougall said last night: “I am still devastated. I am an elderly lady and Angus has been my constant companion. I can’t bear thinking about what might have happened to him.”

Los Angeles resident Ms MacDougall brought the four-year-old black dog to Ireland via London while she was on her way to enjoy a holiday near Skibbereen in Co Cork.

The pensioner had been looking forward to her stay in Ireland as she was planning to go to Dublin to see her 31-year-old son, Adam MacDougall, who is on tour in singer Gemma Hayes’s backing band.

Ms MacDougall, a former United Nations worker, fears her beloved terrier may have been let out of his pen and then fallen overboard.“I can’t see how anyone could have smuggled him off the boat. The ferry company said all cars were checked for Angus. But I can’t bear to think of him struggling in the water.”

Now she is hoping for sightings of her dog, which had a twisted front left leg and was wearing a collar bearing a London phone number and address.

The disappearance of the dog, as well as a Jack Russell terrier on the same sailing, has baffled Swansea Cork Ferries bosses.

The Jack Russell was owned by holidaymaking couple Sheila and Brian Wilkes, who were travelling from Peterborough, in England, to Clonakilty in Co Cork. The loss of the pet, called Spot, left the couple so upset they cancelled their break and headed straight back for Britain.

Swansea Cork Ferries said the loss of Angus and Spot was the first time dogs had gone missing on one of its sailings.

The company was now putting padlocks on dog pens to avoid a repeat of the incidents, a spokesman said.

Anyone with information about the animals is asked to contact gardaí.