Part 3

(in time scale this occurred before the events in PART 2)

Another young girl had been attacked by Lucy’s pack and a fortuitous group of walkers and me must have seemed too strong an opposition and the pack had melted into the mountain.

The young girl had had her clothes shredded by the dogs, a superficial bite on her leg and some bruises and scratches.

A young woman PC who introduced herself as “Janice”; interviewed me as I had witnessed the event and she picked up a hint there had been previous run-ins with Lucy and her friends. I know I blushed at one point, but she deliberately skirted the issue.

She wanted to “map” Lucy’s territory and asked if I would like to help “due to my familiarity” with the dog and its forays. Despite reservations, I agreed and was somewhat reassured when she told me there would be a couple of tracking/defence dogs and another dog handler.

It was a gloomy Sunday when we met and I was introduced to Ben, Jack and Billy; three huge friendly Alsatians used for tracking and as guard dogs. The other dog-handler was a policewoman named Sue.

We had a map of the valley showing the cycle tracks and part of the mountain top common land either side of the valley.

I was able to mark on the map spots where I knew Lucy incidents had occurred. We pored over the map to look for features we thought might be significant and arrived at a plan to sweep the mountainside using the cycle paths as a guide.

Our dogs soon indicated interest in particular spots where there was evidence of dog pack activity as well as some unmarked routes between paths and other features.

We marked these features on the map.

We had already noted a wooded area at the furthest extent of our search area as a potential hideout for Lucy and slowly we worked our way towards it.

There were several cycle path routes and grassy tracks leading into the trees and it was decided to let the dogs sniff out the strongest trails.

We released the dogs and they disappeared among the trees in seconds. We sat in a small clearing chatting quietly.

We didn’t notice at first, but several large dogs emerged from the bushes, grass and trees and appeared to be blocking the paths and trails from our clearing.

The large hairy mutt and a menacing rottweiler slowly approached us followed by a large boxer dog and an Alsatian.

Sue pulled out a silent whistle and gave several blows with no response.

The dogs continued their approach and circled us in a wary fashion and growling.

Other dogs emerged; some forming some form of outer ring and the rest approached sounding a threatening warning.

Sue and Jan were baffled by the behaviour and perturbed by the raised hackles and visible aggression when commands were given by the two women.

I suddenly discovered that several dogs had drifted between me and the two women and snapped angrily at my legs. More dogs parted Sue and Jan in the same way and now circled us, banging our legs with heads and bodies.

“Jesus!” says Sue.

I turn to find Lucy next to her, snarling quietly.

Lucy gives a hard tug on Sue’s skirt and Sue asked, “What the hell is that about?”

I laughed grimly.

“It means “Take it off or I’ll rip it off.”

Other big dogs repeat the action with Jan and me.