I searched for an update on little Ben and this is the only thing I could find:
The Times December 02, 2006
Terrier's rescue turns into a cliffhanger
Simon de Bruxelles
Old and deaf pet trapped for 12 days
Golf club helps coastguard search
An elderly Yorkshire terrier that has been trapped on a ledge for nearly two weeks after falling from a Devon clifftop is refusing to be rescued despite a big operation by the coastguard and the RSPCA.
Ben has spent 12 days on the ledge, where he has been kept alive by golfers and greenkeepers at a nearby club, who have been tossing food down the cliff to him.
On Thursday a coastguard team used climbing equipment to reach the overgrown ledge where the dog is believed to be trapped, but he did not respond to their calls.
There was no sign of Ben by the time darkness fell, and it was feared that he had succumbed to the elements.
But yesterday morning golfers again heard barking from the cliff.
John Pollock, an RSPCA inspector, said: ?The problem is that there is an area the size of 12 football pitches which is steep in places and covered in dense gorse. It would take a team of mechanical diggers to get through it, and so it is very hard to find the dog.?
The rescue mission is not helped by Ben being 13 years old and deaf. He went over cliffs at Axmouth, East Devon, while being walked by the son of his elderly owner, and has not been seen since.
The terrier is thought to be on a broad ledge halfway down cliffs that measure 450ft (135m) and are especially dangerous because they are made up of crumbly slate and shale.
He is thought to have tumbled about 250ft down the steep slope before coming to rest on an outcrop.
The clifftop is fenced off and golfers who use the Axe Cliff course are under strict orders not to cross the barrier because of the danger of landslips. Mr Pollock, who organised the search on Thursday, said that it involved seven RSPCA staff and the eight-strong volunteer coastguard cliff-rescue team from nearby Seaton.
The operation started at 10am and lasted eight hours until it became too dark to continue, but nothing was seen or heard.
Golfers at the Axe Cliff club have heard the terrier barking and greenkeepers have been throwing food into the dense gorse.
Mr Pollock has helped groundsmen at the club to prepare balls of meat and fat that have been thrown over the cliff.
He said: ?They were made of lard, butter and meat and they were throwing five or six of them over, so if the dog can get to them he will have a food source and there should be enough water.
?The club even lent us golf buggies to take our kit across to the cliffs when we carried out the search operation.?
Ben went over the cliff on November 19 and the coastguard was called in immediately to join the search.
It was assumed that he had been killed or badly injured in the fall, until barks were heard.
Charmed lives
Ben?s owner can take heart from the experience of Daisy, a Border terrier, who spent three weeks on a two-foot ledge 20ft above the sea after falling from a cliff at Carradale, Argyll
It took 20 people, including the crew of an RAF Sea King helicopter, to airlift 12 cows up a cliff at Pen Enys Cove, Cornwall, after attempts to persuade them to walk up failed
A 5ft crocodile called Scipio had to be rescued from his owner?s car after it crashed as he was being driven to a veterinary surgery to be circumcised
Source: Times database |