Real life Ace Ventura uncovers crucial clues in huge hunt for a stolen Chihuahua

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The distraught pet owner has spent £20,000, risked her home, handed out more than 20,000 posters and driven 6,000 miles to find Piglet

A distraught pet owner whose exhausting hunt for her missing dog Piglet has so far cost £22,000 has now hired a pet detective thanks to her supporters.

Heartbroken and “traumatised” Mel Clements, 54, has handed out 20,000 posters, walked hundreds of miles and driven at least 6,000 miles across the UK to try to find the beloved Chihuahua. She has vowed to never give up searching for the “love of her life” who vanished ten months ago on March 28th.

The tiny dog went running off scared, still wearing his bright pink harness, when Mel had gone to the dentists while staying on a friend’s barge moored at Coppermill Lane lock in Harefield near Uxbridge. When she was away from the barge there was a burglary and Piglet was released.

Ask Mel how long it has been since she last saw Piglet and she knows exactly: “It’s been 317 days. He was the love of my life. I’m just existing and not living without him. There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t been walking or putting posters up or driving. “ Mel from Derbyshire explained she spent months sleeping in her Volvo and has travelled from John o’Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall, searching for Piglet and putting up ‘stolen’ posters.

She left her job as a cook for three months risking losing her rented home to send out 5,500 posters at a cost of £5,000 to vet practices around the UK, helped with donations of stamps from the public. She also got crucial help from a Gofundme campaign.

She refused to leave no stone unturned an in Harefield alone, where Piglet was last seen, around 5,000 posters have been put through letter boxes. More posters have also been sent to every Royal Mail delivery office a poster of him costing £1,500. A stranger touched by Mel’s plight has joined her hunt and offered £4,000 reward for the safe return of Piglet after seeing her appeals on social media. Mel has joined more than 4,000 Facebook groups.

While another caring supporter is now paying for Colin Butcher, a former police boss, to investigate who has already uncovered vital new evidence this weekend. Met returned to Harefield with the former detective to speak to witnesses.

The next morning, Mel told The Mirror: “It’s the first night I’ve slept properly. It’s such a relief, I just feel like I’ve been going round in circles on my own. I was starting to go crazy on my own. But everything makes sense now and he’s so thorough.

“We did a reconstruction of the areas where Piglet was last seen and we even spoke to a witness how he and his wife and so many people had tried to catch Piglet on the Coy Carp bridge. There were people stopping in cars for a good 15 minutes, trying to get him in but he instantly disappeared. Colin is sure someone has picked him up and taken him off in the car.”

They also now believe an original witness sent Mel off on a “wild good chase” in the wrong direction along a tollpath when she first searched for him and is in fact a “person of interest”.

Colin explained how Mel arrived back at the barge, saw Piglet was missing and immediately took off in the direction she thought he’d gone. “After about five or ten minutes she bumped into a guy on a pushbike with a rucksack on his back who said ‘I’ve just seen that dog and I was trying to catch it’.

“He took her about a mile from the barge along the towpath and pointed out where he’d seen the dog run under a gate and then stood and watched him. She was sent on a wild goose chase for ten months…the whole investigation afterwards was based on this misleading information. He’s now a person of interest because there’s every reason to believe he could have the dog.” Mel said: “It made me so mad I spent so many months where this guy had taken me but after we did reconstruction it’s just impossible. It makes no sense whatsoever now.”

Ex Navy, military intelligence officer and former Detective Inspector, Colin, 64, believes Piglet was in fact “scooped” up somewhere near Koi Carp bridge by a passing motorist. He has spent the last 20 years running his own pet detective agency whose clients eight have “four legs or wings”.

He also believes there is a hope as he himself has a puppy from a stolen dog he helped track down eight years after she vanished. A 14 month old working cocker Spaniel called Cassie was stolen on Mothering’s Sunday 2013 in the owner’s front garden. Cassie had been snatched for use in a breeding network in Sussex, when she was recovered she had three pups, one of which Colin took on and he’s just finishing his truffle hunting training.

Talking about the lengths she has gone to find her dog, Mel said: “He deserves it, it’s still not enough because I haven’t found him but I would do anything. Piglet is my only family, he’s all I’ve got. He was the love of my life. I went to Harefield, the scene of the crime, on Christmas Day and on his third birthday. I spent the day on my own, I hate going there but I hate leaving there too because it’s the last place I saw him.”

And in a message to anyone who may have him, she said: “I just need him home. The amount of lost, stolen or missing pets is heartbreaking, it fills me with even more dread, some have been missing for years.” But when Rita and Philip Potter from Norfolk had their “dream come true” with the return of their Lab called Daisy after seven years, Mel says she now has more “hope”.