A Highgate dog owner has spent more than �6,000 and hired a detective in a desperate search to find her lost pet.

Angela Bruce, 42, was devastated when her beloved pooch Pathos went missing from her mother’s garden in Essex on Christmas Day after escaping from his harness.

Suspecting that he may have been picked up by someone while roaming the streets, the charity worker launched a major advertising campaign in a desperate bid to find him.

Over the last six months Ms Bruce has taken out regular double page ads in local newspapers appealing for information, at the cost of �650 a month.

She even hired a private investigator to scour Clacton and Colchester after a tip off the dog had been seen in these areas and enlisted the help of community police. With calls flooding in about possible sightings, she also dedicated every spare hour making the 140-mile round trip to Essex in her own hunt for Pathos.

But her visits are now down to every other week after the sightings began to dwindle.

She has spent hundreds of pounds printing 3,000 missing posters in a bid to locate the 11-year-old shiba inu, which is a Japanese breed resembling a husky.

However – despite all her exhaustive efforts – Pathos is still missing.

“He’s part of our family,” said Ms Bruce. “We don’t have children and he just means everything to me.

“Any dog owner would do what they could to find their pet - I don’t know if I’ve done more than anyone else.

“I know that it will eventually get to saturation point where there’s nothing more we can do. It’s just the not knowing whether he’s suffering or whether he’s alive or dead.

“I’m not some mad dog person. It’s just that it’s my dog and I want to know I’ve done all I can to get him back.”

Ms Bruce said she had been amazed by the public support for her plight. More than 1,800 people have joined a Facebook page she set up called ‘Help find my lost dog Pathos.’

“People just seem to have taken him to their heart because he’s a very pretty, gentle dog,” she added.

Ms Bruce brought Pathos back from a rescue centre in France just over six years ago.

She said he was beaten by his owner and has been left with a nervous disposition. Describing her lost animal, Ms Bruce said he is reddy brown, the size of a cocker spaniel with a bushy tail.

She urged anyone who might have seen Pathos to contact her at angelabruce@blueyonder.co.uk.