A MOTHER has appealed for help in tracking down a family dog that eased her daughter’s recovery after a critical illness.

Beverley Geary and her daughter Sara were devastated when tiny Tia squeezed through a hedge and escaped their front garden on Prescot Road on Monday, April 25.

Tia, a Jack Russell Lancashire Heeler cross, has been more than just a pet to the St Helens family.

Shortly after buying the seven-year-old rescue dog in 2007, Sara (20) was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.

And by March 2008 she was admitted to Whiston Hospital intensive care with Petritonitis (inflammation of the abdomen lining) and had to undergo emergency surgery for a perforated bowel.

Mum Beverley, 44, said: “It was a really difficult time because Sara was in hospital for nine weeks and my mum also died from the very same thing three years earlier. It was heartbreaking.

“It was just me and Sara living together, so without Tia to come home to for cuddles I would have cried the whole time.”

Sara, now an expectant mother, suffered from muscle wastage after she left hospital and playful Tia kept her spirits up.

Beverley, who works for BBK Ltd in Wigan, said: “Tia was amazing around Sara. She would fuss over her and make her feel better. She’s great with my 82-year-old dad, Ernest, too. Tia absolutely adores him and he’s really missing walking her.”

Despite putting up hundreds of posters across St Helens, Beverley has not received any sightings for more than a week.

Tia is described as mainly brown in colour, with large, black pricked-up ears and white markings on her muzzle, tail and feet. She was last spotted on Thursday, April 28 in Tesco’s car park, St Helens.

Anyone with information about Tia can contact Beverley on 07969 512996, or via www.doglost.co.uk.