Rescuing Sandy: The Story of a Lost Bear

While walking along a short stretch of Croyde Road to get to the coastpath on the other side of the road we came across a very sad looking bear wedged behind a post. We were a bit concerned that a human might be looking for the bear so we said goodbye and continued our walk with the thoughts that we would check on the way back to see if she was still there.

About 2 hours later the bear was still there, and looking even sadder. We asked her if she would like to come along with us, and she agreed as didn’t want to spend the night behind the post.

The dear lost bear couldn’t remember her name. She had been run over by a car and was rather traumatised. As we had found her near the seaside we decided to call her Sandy.

Sandy’s back was very dirty with tyre marks left from her accident. My human thought we could restore her with a bit of loving care and a good wash.

Sandy sat and watched the sunset with us before we took her back to our accomodation.

For the car journey home Sandy sat in the box with the walking shoes. She was a bit apprehensive about where she was going.

Here are photos of Sandy with me before she had a bath

As you can see, her back was ingrained in black dust from car tyres.

After rubbing some special bear friendly detergent (Aldi biological washing powder) into the badly stained areas Sandy sat in the bowl for a while to soak.

She then went into the bear jacuzzi (washing machine) on the mixed fabrics wash in a special delicates bag. My human fluffed up her fur with her fingers and dried her just a little with a hair dryer, then brushed her with a small hairbrush. She looked like a new bear.

All the black marks on her back disappeared.

Karen put the bow, which was sewn on to her, on some elastic to go around her neck so she can take it on and off.

It turns out that Sandy rather likes honey, so the next morning she enjoyed a bowl of hearty porridge with Exmoor honey.

Sandy also seems quite happy to just sit on the back of the sofa, and gets along well with old Growler.

We later found out from our post in ‘North Devon Lost & Found’ that a human had seen Sandy run over the day before we found her and had put her behind the post hoping someone might come back for her, so she had spent one night there. We were a bit worried that someone might be looking for her, but it seems not as no one had contacted us following the social media posts on various lost and found pages.

Sandy seems to be quite happy where she is now though!