Fundraiser to help bereaved dog owner reaches more than £1,500 in a matter of hours

Friday 02 June 2017

A crowdfunding page set up by the administrators of the Jersey Dog Forum to help a bereaved dog owner has reached more than £1,500 in a matter of hours.

Gail Hickmott's 11-year-old greyhound named Silks died on Thursday from injuries sustained after falling off cliffs at Beauport.

Ms Hickmott owns and runs the Greyhound Rescue Group which was set up to help home retired racing greyhounds. In 21 years, they have rescued 242 greyhounds.

Early Thursday morning, Ms Hickmott asked for help on the Jersey Dog Forum Facebook page after Silks fell off a cliff and into the sea. She later posted that the dog had made it to the top of the stairs but was lost among the ferns. Islanders rallied around and came to help, with several going down to Beauport to look for Silks. The Fire Service also attended and scanned the area with the help of drones.

Silks was eventually found after a search of over eight hours. She was taken to the vet but sadly had to be put down as her injuries were too serious. 

Immediately after Gail posted the news on Facebook, a lot of members of the forum started sending their regards with some suggesting to meet to honour the memory of the four-legged companion.

The administrators of the Jersey Dog Forum decided to take it further and set up a crowdfunding page to help Ms Hickmott pay for the vet bills. The crowdfunding page describes Silks as "...no ordinary greyhound, she was an expert donut hoover able to sniff them out a mile away, thieving the jammiest of jam donuts "who leaves donuts in the middle of the beach anyway?!". Silks was a sleek, beautiful girl who was loved very much and will be missed by all that knew her."

Jessica Kerfoot, one of the administrators, told Express: "We all love Gail she's so special, she has given so much to the canine community and been a huge supporter of the Jersey Dog Forum, anything we can do to help Gail we will do."

"The Jersey Dog Forum Group was set up to support the Island’s dog owners. Gail has given so much to the dog owning community having helped Islanders to rescue over 200 dogs, including more recently dogs from the Yulin Meat Festival. The dog owning community pulls together at times like this and this is one way that islanders can show Gail the tremendous support that there is for her and to give something back to the lady who has given so much in other ways. The funds raised can never replace Silks but can give Gail support to enable her to continue to do what she does so brilliantly."

The two women were floored to see that the page had already reached over £1,500 in just a few hours. Ms Kerfoot said: "We certainly didn't expect to get that as fast as we did. The support has been astounding. We're over the moon with the support of our forum and others within the doggy community."