THE DOG WAS FOUND FIRST

A woman walking near River Wyre around 9:33 a.m. noticed Nicola’s dog running loose.

The harness was still attached… but strangely not clipped to the lead.

Nearby, Nicola’s phone remained on the bench — still inside the morning work call.

Police say there were no immediate signs of struggle.

But why would the dog stay… if its owner had suddenly disappeared?

📌 Full story in the comments

Expert believes Nicola Bulley’s dog likely ‘went back to spot where it last saw her’

An animal behaviourist said dogs will often return to the last location they were with their missing owner which may aid police in their search

Ms Bulley’s dog Willow (Image: Facebook )

An expert believes missing Nicola Bulley could be found from clues given by her dog Willow because a dog will often go back to the last place it had been with its owner. The 45-year-old mum went missing on the morning of January 27 after dropping off her two daughters at school in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire. Specialist dive teams, helicopters, sniffer dogs, multiple emergency services and locals have all been scouring the River Wyre and the surrounding area where she was last seen having gone to take her dog Willow for a walk. On social media, Ms Bulley often posted pictures of herself and her springer spaniel enjoying the Lancashire countryside and the river.

Lancashire Police initally said they were working on the theory Ms Bulley had slipped and fallen into the river. At 9.35am on the day of her disappearance, a dog walker found Nicola’s phone on a bench on a steep riverbank overlooking the water, along with the dog lead, with the dog harness on the ground.

Nicola and Willow (Image: PA)

Writing in The Times, Mr Tennant said: “It can pick up locational scent: each area of land has its own peculiar scent and it maps the land with that olfactory system.

“So it will smell the bank and keep going back to that scent. It will often migrate back to the last spot where it was with the owner because they’re its pack leader.”

The behaviourist expert explained that an untrained dog would not be able to understand why their owner had disappeared if they fell into a river because “it doesn’t understand water like we do”.

He wrote: “If an owner is walking along the river and fell in, and went under, or the river carried them off, the dog would be absolutely perplexed because it doesn’t understand water like we do. It has no capacity for that. If the owner was screaming or shouting that could increase the dog’s confusion.”

An underwater search for missing Ms Bulley is continuing following a fresh appeal by her partner, who said her two daughters “desperately” miss her and “need her back”. The search for Ms Bulley, 45, is entering its 11th day after she went missing on January 27 in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire.

In a statement released on Monday through Lancashire Police, her partner Paul Ansell said: “I have two little girls who miss their mummy desperately and who need her back.”

Later on Monday night, the head of a team of private underwater search experts cast doubt on the force’s current working hypothesis that Ms Bulley had fallen into the river.

Underwater search teams (Image: PA)

Lancashire Police Superintendent Sally Riley (Image: PA)

Lancashire Police has searched the river and riverbank all the way to the sea, using search teams, sonar, search dogs, drone, helicopter and CCTV.

On Monday, Lancashire Police released two new images of Ms Bulley on the day she went missing, when she dropped her two daughters, aged six and nine, off at school and then went on her usual dog walk alongside the river.

Her phone, still connected to a Teams call for her job as a mortgage adviser, was found on a bench on a steep riverbank overlooking the water, along with the dog lead, with the dog harness on the ground.

“Our working hypothesis remains that Nicola sadly fell into the river for some reason, but we remain open minded, and we are continuing to carry out a huge number of inquiries,” the force said.

The force is confident, after reviewing CCTV, that Ms Bulley did not leave the field near the river via Rowanwater – either through the site itself or the piece of land at the side – and she did not return from the fields along Allotment Lane or via the path at the rear of the Grapes pub onto Garstang Road.

Officers are now focusing on the river path leading from the fields back to Garstang Road, and urged drivers and cyclists who travelled that way on January 27, as well as anyone with CCTV or Ring Doorbell footage, to contact them.