Inra was lost in this area in Spring 2008 and has been sighted repeatedly since then, wandering alone in the countryside close to Ilkeston.

He has been sighted in Stanley Common and Shipley Country Park.

In March he was found a new home on the edge of Derby - but just four days later, his new owner lost him in the fields between Spondon and Ockbrook.

With no real knowledge of how to fend for himself and with a fear of humans which stops him from approaching them for food, the poor dog has been roaming the countryside ever since, glimpsed here and there in the fields and lanes of East Derbyshire as a poor cringing, starving creature who flees for his life the moment anyone tries to approach him.

Six-and-a-half months on from being lost, he is now believed to be steadily starving to death.

A poster and leaflet campaign has resulted in a smattering of calls to the RSPCA, but the dog remains an elusive whisp of smoke and his trail is always stone cold by the time the RSPCA are informed.

A RSPCA spokesperson said: "We know that in the last six months he has wandered east to Ockbrook and Risley, then north to Stanton-by-Dale, back west to Dale Abbey, north again to Stanley Common and Shipley Country Park, then southwest to Morley Hayes and Smalley Crossroads before heading westward to Horsley Woodhouse, Coxbench and Holbrook.

"He is a plain black medium-sized Labrador-Border Collie cross with a greying muzzle and very distinctive ears - One Pricked up, one dropped down. His ears are the absolutely vital key to finding him.

"All we can say with certainty at the moment is that he is somewhere in the countryside between Derby, Belper, Heanor and Ilkeston - very cold and very hungry."

Inra doesn't answer to any name and will run away in fear if you try to approach him, because he was so cruelly treated by his last owner.

He is a black medium-sized labrador-border collie cross, with a greying muzzle and very distinctive ears - one pricked one, one drooped down.

If you see him, please call the Derby RSPCA Volunteers on
07758 709337 or 07808 931289 or 07884 437396.