The dog was found near the bench where Nicola’s phone was found
A dog belonging to Nicola Bulley was found “bone dry” next to the river where she vanished, according to a local resident.
The 45-year-old mum disappeared last Friday morning while on a walk with springer spaniel Willow in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire.
An alarm was raised when the dog was found walking around off its lead about an hour later.
Police have revealed Nicola’s phone was still connected to a work conference call when it was found next to a dog lead and harness. The camera was off and she was muted.
A major police search has since been launched and has also seen hundreds of local residents scouring the area for any sign of the missing mum.
The force says it remains “open minded” as to Nicola’s disappearance but insist they do not believe at present that she was attacked.
A local told the MailOnline: “I know the woman who found Willow. She said the dog was near the river bank and close to the bench that Nicola’s phone was found.
“Willow was bone dry and so hadn’t been into the water but the dog was in an agitated state.”
Rescuers were today focusing on a tidal stretch of the river amid fears Nicola may have fallen in and been dragged downstream towards the coast, nine miles away.
A business owner – who did not wish to be named – says she raised the alarm after finding Willow.
She said the phone was found under a tree which has a sign warning of deep water nailed to it.
The woman said: “I saw the dog and I recognised it, but I suddenly couldn’t think whose dog it was.
“There was a mobile phone on the bench and there was also something between the bench and the river so I went and looked, and it was a dog harness.”
She said the dog looked “worried” and after speaking to her daughter-in-law was told it belonged to Nicola.
Bulley’s two young daughters are said to have “cried their eyes out” when their dad told them their mum had gone missing.
Police are now seeking a “key witness”, a man, aged about 70, who was seen walking a small white fluffy dog in the area at the time she disappeared.
The man, who was described as 6ft (1.8m) and well built, “spoke to the woman in the area who found Nicola’s dog near a bench in the field”, Lancashire Police said in a statement.
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