Surrey woman launches appeal for missing disabled support animal
Lauren French says she would not be here without her tabby cat Sparky
Last updated 25th Feb 2025
A Buckinghamshire woman has launched a desperate appeal to help find her missing support animal.
Lauren French from Wrecclesham suffers from multiple sclerosis and was prescribed her tabby cat Sparky to help tackle the condition.
However, a string of bad events in her life has been worsened by the disappearance of her support animal, which has exacerbated her symptoms.
"I have recently buried my favourite person in the whole world, my dear Auntie who sadly lost her battle to cancer," she said.
"On returning home hoping to grieve the already enormous loss, within a month Sparky disappeared - which has caused my multiple sclerosis to go haywire, causing flare ups, pains in my eyes, head and face and numbness in my legs."
Since then, Lauren has involved the local community to try and find the cat, doing as much as 70,000 steps a day and putting up 750 posters in the local area to spread the word.
"The past couple of days my body has really started giving in, I spend day and nights crying and sobbing and just praying we will find him safe, but everything I've done seems as if it's amounted to nothing at the moment.
"My life is falling apart, that's how I feel, being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis to saying goodbye to a woman who was like a mum/grandma wrapped into one to sparky disappearing has made life almost unbearable right now."
The cat is also disabled, with one eye missing - as well as poor vision in his other eye, Lauren described.
She went on to say: "Without sparky I can promise you I wouldn't be here today, he has helped my mental health more than words can say and without him I'm falling apart."