A PAIR of animals lovers have helped thousands of lost pets be reunited with their owners through social media.

Helen Leader and Ann Cushion set up the Tilly’s Angels Facebook page after Cockapoo Tilly went missing in May 2016.

Sadly, the dog was hit and killed by a train, despite efforts to get her back safely.

Tilly’s Angels sees people post about lost and missing dogs and the team of about 18 volunteers dedicate their time to finding the pets.

Tilly’s Angels has been involved with various successful pet hunts.

One of the recent cases was the hunt for Smarty who was left in a horsebox in Surrey before it was stolen.

The horsebox was later found in Wickford but without Smarty and a huge search was launched, with 10,000 people helping. She was eventually found near Lakeside and reunited.

The group also helped locate stolen Chihuahua puppy Tilly and reunite the puppy with her worried owners.

Helen, 56, from Westcliff, said there are different types of searched carried out by the group.

She said there are physical searches where people go out walking or driving around the towns to look for a dog and the second kind which involves people sharing posts on social media.

She said: “It all started back in April 2016 when a dog that we were searching for was sadly hit by a train.

“It was missing from the Chalkwell area and was hit by a train between Prittlewell and Southend Airport train station.

“We then started talking about setting up the group, and it just went from there.

“We still have some people helping us who were involved with the first search.

“People were posting in the Tilly’s Angels group about other pets that were out of the areas and so we created the Tilly’s Cloud page as well.

“It now means that we are not only helping pets in our area but we are also helping others from all over the country.”

Within less than three weeks after being formed, more than 500 people joined the Tilly’s Angels Facebook group.

Today the page has more than 8,600 members.

Ann, 58, from Leigh, added: “I think the success of the page is down to how the public have really got behind us and supported us.

“So many people are following the page now and it means that if someone living in the SS postcode area has lost a dog, someone often suggests the owner comes to us for help.

“It’s so difficult to give an exact figure of how many dogs we have helped because a post can be shared so many times.

“Social media plays such a big part in what we do.

“We have people in different areas of south Essex such as Basildon, Leigh and Southend so when we have a report of a lost dog in those areas we have people who can start to look.”

The group is holding a fundraising quiz on September 26 from 7pm at Oyster Court Sports Bar, High Street, Southend.

Entrance is £5 per person.

To donate, join the group or find out more about the group, search for Tilly’s Angels on Facebook.