Missing dog search in Topsham

Topsham is built right up to the water, with salt marsh and mudflats surrounding it on three sides, and that changes how a search here is planned more than almost anywhere else on this list. A dog on exposed mud as the tide comes back in is a genuine, time-critical hazard, so tide times are checked as a first step, before the search pattern is even set, and the aircraft's low, wide view over the marsh is one of the fastest ways there is to confirm ground is actually clear.

The Goat Walk riverside path and the Bowling Green Marsh reserve are both obvious, open routes a dog is likely to follow if it heads away from the town along the water, and both are checked early. Bowling Green Marsh in particular attracts a lot of wildfowl, and the movement and noise of birds lifting off can itself be a useful sign during a low pass, worth watching for as much as the dog itself.

Away from the water, the historic core around the Strand is tightly packed, with narrow lanes and small courtyards, and that close-in ground is worked on foot rather than from the air, with the drone concentrating on the open marsh and riverside where it especially adds speed over a person walking the same ground.

Many of the buildings in Topsham's dense historic core are listed, and their courtyards, walled gardens and outbuildings are close, enclosed spaces that a dog can disappear into without going anywhere near the water covered above. These are checked on foot, address by address, because the aircraft adds little over a person who can actually open a gate and look.

The modern infill towards the Exeter road is a completely different, more open kind of ground, ordinary estate streets and gardens backing onto the edge of open country rather than onto a walled courtyard. A dog loose from one of those newer addresses is more likely to be moving through open ground the aircraft can help with. Exeter, Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton are the nearest towns to widen towards if neither the old core nor the modern edge turns anything up.

Topsham Quay and The Strand are useful meeting points for anyone converging on the search, close to both the historic core and the open riverside covered above, and knowing which of the two a dog is more likely to have reached, the tight lanes or the open marsh, is worth working out from the last sighting before the aircraft commits to either.