Nicola Bulley's partner Paul Ansell has talked of the "hell and frustration" he feels over the fact their family dog Willow almost certainly knows what happened to the mum-of-two.
Speaking to Dan Walker in a Channel 5 special on Nicola's disappearance, Paul said the fact Willow almost certainly witnessed what happened adds "another layer of frustration" to the situation.
"It's a hellish situation with the layer of hell that, no, not knowing what's happened yet. And then also having Willow who probably does know what happened. Um, but she can't, she can't tell us, can she?" he said.
"And she’s a very sensitive dog. I did take her back there first thing on the Saturday, the day after."
Paul desperately tried to get Willow to lead him to Nicola, but to no avail.
"I was obviously, I was praying and hoping that once we got to the gate, that she would do something different, you know," he said.
But the dog simply ran through the gate in anticipation of a walk.
Paul said: "I was saying to her, where's mummy? Where's mummy? You know? And she was just looking at me like, you know, let's go for a walk.
"I would've thought that if something had happened by the riverbank, I would've thought that she'd had gone through the gate and gone that way.
"But she didn't, whenever we go on that walk, we go through the gate and we always go left. And that's what she did. She just went left down, you know, ready to do the normal thing."
Paul said he remained at the scene for most of the day in a bid to try and locate missing Nicola.
"I had people obviously turning up and helping and stuff, and spent most of that day walking around and I had Willow with me and, um, yeah... just didn't find anything."
He said Willow was "just acting like she always does".
In another part of the interview, Paul said he does not believe Nicola is in the river but wants to keep “all options open” about her disappearance.
He said: “We’ve always been very careful that we don’t want to say, ‘oh, we think it’s that’, and then push that when it might not be.
“The most obvious thing, of course has always been the river. It’s always been my gut instinct and her sisters, and family that, that isn’t the case.
“Extensive searching, as you know is probably well aware has gone on in that river.”
Lancashire Police have continued to investigate Nicola's disappearance on the understanding that she fell into the River Wyre.
Officers have now started trawling across Morecambe Bay, some 20 miles from where police believe Nicola fell in.
Peter Faulding, the head of a team of divers involved in the search, said he doesn't believe the mother-of-two is in the river.
"If Nicola was in that river, I would have found her – I guarantee you that – and she's not in that section of the river," he said.
He added that he also believes it unlikely that Nicola has drifted all the way out to sea.
"My personal view is that I think it is a long way to go in a tidal river," he said.
