AS OUR pets have helped us through the lockdown, we look back on one pet’s journey to a new home.

The Mail reported in April 1989: An Alsatian dog dumped at Barrow police station last week has started a new life in York at a German Shepard Rescue society.

Police and the council’s dog warden Doug O’Neill were flooded with calls from people offering homes to the dogs following the Evening Mail’s report of the plight last Wednesday. But it was decided to send him away to stop him wandering back to his original owner said Anita Green of Animal rescue:

It would have done him no good to place him at an address and then find out that his real owner lived next door. But the big Alsatian who was abandoned with his collar, lead and enough food for two big meals, refused to go quietly. Despite his macho appearance, he whimpered and wailed during the four-hour journey to York and attempts to calm him down failed.

"He was terrified of the journey and the car", said Anita, who with her husband Paul, took him across the Pennines on Friday. What should have been a two-hour journey turned out to be four because he kept getting upset.’

The German Shepard Rescue Society will assess the Alsatian - who still hasn’t been named - to check his temperature.