May
Behind the Scenes at Reggie HQ
Everyone has heard or read the story about what happened to little Reggie. Today I’m letting you know what we have been up to behind the scenes for the past few months. The Justice for Reggie Campaign has been growing for the last 5 months. In those 5 months the whole team have been nonstop behind the scenes. The Justice For Reggie Campaign has 3 Founders and 13 volunteers all of different abilities, who all help the Campaign run as smoothly and amazing as possible.
The social media side has kicked off massively, Facebook now has almost 10,000 likes, with Instagram and Twitter both slowly gaining followers. On our social media accounts, we share any information we believe will help not just the campaign but those with lost dogs, getting knowledge out to the public and being able to be the voice for families with stories similar to Reggie’s. We help them get their stories heard.
Our Facebook account has Founder Ann along with 11 volunteers working hard, replying to comments and sharing the posts. Every post we share, we check first. We check into its origin to ensure we are not giving out false hope or false information. When we get a story sent into us, we approach it with a little more caution. The family want to share what happened, but asking so many questions will bring all the pain back to the surface. We don’t won’t the person sharing their story to change their mind. One of our volunteers replies to the families about their story so the communication doesn’t break down or something gets missed.
Everyone has seen a rise in dog theft and lost dogs. We share these posts to spread the word and help in any way we can. We understand 1 type of pain, but to have your 4 legged friend stolen is a pain none of our volunteers have had. We share with the hope all our amazing followers will share and make the dog too hot to handle, getting them returned not long after going missing. More than once we are lucky to say this has happened. We have been designed our own lost poster, we send it to the family to be able to share on their social media accounts and where ever else they can.
A lot of people have seen some of the hard work that the Justice For Reggie team have been doing. We have successfully had 2 Facebook live nights with guest speakers MP’s, selling websites and also charities. These Facebook lives are a lot harder than they look. The amount of work that goes into making sure it runs smoothly, well it doesn’t all ways go to plan. We are still all getting the hang of how to make it all run smooth. We are looking forward to being able to present more in the future, with a bit more practise and less technical difficulties.
We had our first MP back the campaign Sir Mike Penning in February. It was amazing to have some recognition for all the hard work. It also felt very surreal to have the first MP understand the pain and frustration and want to help us to keep fighting. Since Sir Mike announced he was joining the campaign, we have slowly received replies from other MP’s wanting a meeting with us.
We email the MP, sometimes we are lucky with a reply sometimes we wait a few weeks. Everyone is busy, but they get back to us when they can and arrange a Zoom meeting with us. Richard one of the founders of Justice For Reggie he sends the Zoom information in one of our very many WhatsApp groups with the details to be able to attend. Sometimes we have a good voluntary turn about but everyone has there own personal lives as well.
We speak with MP’s on a regular basis in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. They are all very caring people who want to help support us. We spoke with Chris Evans MP who listened to us and agreed to put an Adjournment together with our research and present it in the House Of Commons. We have had such a high number of MP’s happy to work with us and help in different ways, the support can be overwhelming at times but definitely very welcome.
Selling Websites are the biggest problem, they don’t take accountability for Animal Welfare. Speaking with the selling sites this is not all ways the case. Alicia Founder for Justice For Reggie and another volunteer work along side the selling websites, offering advice and most importantly making sure their site is not being used by illegal breeders who are only there to make money. We check the sites often to see if there are any suspicious adverts and report them. The selling sites have listened to all our concerns and have monthly Zoom’s to see if there are any issues we found or anything that can make them a better site.
We meet some lovely people, some have a huge team behind them some are doing it single handed and are making sure every improvement mentioned is put into practise. The people behind the selling sites don’t have 3 eyes and horns, they are as normal as us. The information we give is all ways taken on board with the best interest of everyone seller, animal and buyer. We can never get the sites to stop selling animals, being able to give them good advice is a win in our books.
Ask yourself, what happens to a pet that is no longer wanted? Would you believe the ‘pandemic puppies’ that where bought while people were on lockdown are being sold on. Now things are returning to a bit more normality, the money they spent on their £3000 puppy they want back. Instead of going to a Rescue they are selling the dogs on. This is causing behaviour problems, which the Rescues have noticed with the few that have made there way through 3 homes at the age of 18 months. I mention this as we have been meeting with Rescues and Charities asking them how they have been affected and how we can help or possibly work together.
The majority of the Rescues/Charities said about the number of dogs being passed around before being giving to a Rescue. We said it a bit more simple – you wouldn’t move a child from home to home and not expect them to have any behaviour problems, it’s the same with a dog. With this we came up with a side Campaign #SurrenderDontSell not every Rescue is bad or horrible, they have your dog’s best interest at heart.
We have spoken with a few Police Crime Commissioners about the rise in dog theft’s. Finding out about why there has been such a rise in dog theft, what people can do and what we can do as a Campaign to help make people aware of what is going on and educate them on how to keep their dogs safe. Sadly we were informed that dog theft is recorded as theft of a possession at a value of £100. To most a pet is seen as more than a possession but as family. We have spoken about changing the way dog theft is recorded.
If we could do it all I am sure we would try. Being able to speak to the PCC’s gives us the chance to let them know how you feel. We can help educate people and keep pushing forward. Being the voice that everyone has listened too, wanting change for the better.
We haven’t stopped, we don’t want to stop, or slow down. We will keep fighting and the being the voice for our fury friends.