Those Unforgettable 31 hours after we lost our Pet Dog
Short version:
We lost our 13 months old fur baby and found him after 31 hours of serious hunt
Long version:
Please read below — Long Post Alert!!
19th April: 08.30
Our 13-month-old male indie pet — Jojo escaped from our parent’s independent house in Karvenagar, Pune. This was his first trip to Pune ever. On the third day of the trip, when the car cleaner opened the gate to come inside, Jojo saw a quick opening and managed to squeeze out. Thereafter the cleaner started chasing Jojo in an attempt to catch him. Realizing that Jojo was much quicker than he thought, the cleaner called his brother on a bicycle to come and help him catch Jojo. Soon the 2 started following/chasing Jojo to catch him. But he continued to run further away and they lost track of him after covering 2 km in one direction.
And the search started
19th April: 09.30
At the time when Jojo ran out of the house, both Swati and myself were not in the house as we were outside. We got the dreaded phone call informing us Jojo had escaped. We rushed back home and started running frantically on the road calling out his name. Initially, we showed his photos to people passing by on the road, to all the security guards of buildings/shops around us, and shopkeepers/ tapri walas. The biggest challenge we realized that was in front of us was Jojo being an Indie looked similar to so many of the stray dogs on the streets. After an hour we decided to create a poster and started posting it on social media. Our sister was our social media champion and sitting in Bangalore, she made sure that the post reaches maximum people via WhatsApp, Facebook, insta.
19th April: 11.00
We printed hundreds of posters and started sticking posters everywhere possible. Went in each and every lane in the area where we had last spotted him. We realized we need more heads and we were lucky when employees working in our father’s company voluntarily came and assisted us in scouting the area on their bikes.
In the meanwhile, as the word kept spreading, we received contacts from Animal Communicators. Talking to them gave us some hope and kept our search on based on their pointers.
19th April: 15.00
Our search continued deep in the afternoon in the sweltering Pune heat. We realized that in the situation that we were in, we didn’t realize the impact of the heat, hunger, or thirst as we kept roaming around all afternoon into the evening. Just one thought was on our mind — finding Jojo and praying that he is safe in the meanwhile. All this while we had not told our daughter who was at her maternal grandparents’ place. We didn’t dare to tell her that her sibling was lost.
19th April: 17.00
We decided to pause the search operation in the evening as traffic and people on the road had increased tremendously. We had decided that the next search operation would resume post 10 pm in the night with the hope that Jojo will be able to hear us when we call out his name. Additionally, that would be the time dogs would start moving around in search of food and water.
19th April: 20.00
In the evening we gathered courage and told our daughter what had happened. Obviously, she was disturbed, worried, anxious, and crying but it is amazing how kids can adapt to any situation. She immediately calmed herself and said let’s go and find him.
Through the evening we started realizing the power of social media. We got a few people calling us on video to confirm dogs, a few sending pictures, few calling us to confirm the details of the dog but all in vain. Many people started offering their help — sharing animal communicator contacts, some shared mantras to chant, some volunteers detailed their usual feeding times and spots for the strays.
19th April: 22.30
We resumed our search operation on 2 bikes, the both of us on one bike and our brother and daughter on another. Again started roaming the lanes and bylanes of the last known area and shouting his name with no luck. At about 12 am we realized that the brother’s bike was almost out of petrol and so decided to find a 24hr open petrol pump. Despite being mentioned as 24hr open pump, we were completely disappointed when we reached the pump and found it closed. A random person standing beside the pump heard our argument with the pump attendant offered to help. He went to a car that was parked nearby, opened the boot took out a can of petrol, and poured about half a tank into our two-wheeler. When we asked how much we should pay him his response “Devani mala khup dila aahe, nako mala tumchyakadun kahi” translated “God has given me enough I don’t need anything from you”. As magically as he had appeared within a few mins of filling the bike he disappeared without even us realizing. That’s when we realized “God is on our side”
We came back home at 1am with helplessness, guilt, anxiety, fear, and tears in our eyes. We just couldn’t dare to imagine what Jojo could be going through. The area where we lost track of him was full of strays. Usually, stray dogs do not let a new dog in so we were all the more worried about how he would manage an entire night all on his own.
20th April 02.05
At 2am we got a call from a person working as a repairman from the Swargate Bus depot (this is where buses undergo repair and maintenance) saying that he had spotted a dog similar to Jojo. The photo he sent us via WA was unclear as it was pretty dark. Upon reaching there at around 2.15 am, we found that this dog was exactly like Jojo in color and built except that she was a female.
20th April 05.30
In the morning we again started the hunt at 5.30am with whatever clues we were getting from an animal communicator. This time it was walking. A few had suggested that walking and searching were more effective as there is a chance the dog will be able to latch onto the scent and meet up. In any case, the last thing we wanted to do was sit at home and wait for a miracle to happen.
20th April 07.30
While we were searching, we saw a little boy far away dressed in school clothes, holding Jojo’s poster and asking strangers if they saw him. We were overwhelmed to see this act of kindness. We also saw a ‘tapri’ where he actually had put up cardboard and plastic around the poster, which we gave him and hung it properly. We were also joined by 2 volunteers from the area who called us after they saw the message and joined us in the search operation in the blistering heat. We went door to door asking people if they had spotted Jojo.
These random acts of kindness gave us further hope that we will find Jojo. He will come back to us.
20th April 14.30
By this time our sister got a lead on Instagram from a person as to where she had spotted Jojo. This was the first time we got a real physical lead. She is a volunteer and while she was doing her regular feeding to the strays she had spotted him the previous afternoon as he had come there to eat. This was near Cummins College which was more than 5 kms away from our house. We immediately decided to go there again though we had already searched that area multiple times in the afternoon and night the day before.
While we continued our search, we got a couple of more people who confirmed that they had seen a dog similar to Jojo. One guard confirmed, he offered biscuits to the dog but the dog wouldn’t eat. A little later the dog got chased away by the stray dogs in the vicinity.
20th April 15.30
Tables turned on us in a span of a few minutes,
- A very close friend of the family (who was aware that Jojo was missing) was on her way back home from work when Jojo literally crossed the road right in front of her.
- Power of social media — At the same time a pet parent on the road who had also received the poster (don’t know how) spotted him and called us that she was 100% certain it was Jojo.
We found it very hard to believe as this area was further away from our location about 6 kms from the house.
Both these ladies were so confident that we immediately rushed to the spot near the Shivaji statue in Kothrud. Both the ladies waited for us to arrive. In the meanwhile, Jojo had disappeared by the time it took both the ladies to make the calls. Upon enquiring with a few people, a person selling his goods on the road confirmed that he had seen a dog matching the description enter into one of the by lanes. As we entered the by lane whistling for him and calling out his name, he immediately responded with his usual yelp and a wagging tail from inside the compound of a bungalow he had entered.
He jumped on us and licked us but we could see that he did not have any strength. We met him after 31 hours.
It’s a moment we will never forget.
Jojo was united with us only because we had the love and support of hundreds if not thousands of people who shared his post (each share matters), all the volunteers and family members that joined in the physical search operation, and because of prayers of all our friends and families.
What did we do through these hours?
- Created flyers and circulated in all forms of social media possible
- Printed hundreds of flyers and stuck them in different areas within a km radius of his last known location
- Spoke to hundreds of people enquiring if they had seen people. Most people were very happy to take a picture of the flyer and circulate it amongst their groups/feeds
- Rode through the neighborhood area in the vicinity of his last known location multiple times a day
- Walked the streets calling out his name
- Walked the entire path he had taken from the house to the last known location a few times
- Created a cloth trail through the entire path by placing pieces of a cut-up used t-shirt that had Swanand’s smell (yes, sounds fatuous)
- Created a food trial by placing small amounts of his regular food through the known path (yes, sounds even sillier)
- Contacting multiple animal communicators helped us keep our hopes high.
- Chanting the mantras we received
- Hanging onto our phones like dear life — literally had the phone in our hand through the entire period
- Video calling people on WA whenever there was a possible lead
What did we take away from this entire experience?
- Our faith in humanity and people is not only intact but firmly bolstered. The world is full of kind people, PERIOD.
- The realization that there is so much work on the ground happening to care for the thousands of stray dogs, is totally eye-opening
- The power of social media is tremendous when used wisely. Location is not a constraint. So many people outside Pune helped and spread the word making the entire search effort viral.
- We found Jojo’s sibling — they are set up to meet over the weekend, YAY!
- Make sure your petrol tank is full when you go for a search 😊
Random acts of kindness that we experienced
- A 6-year-old stranger boy holding a copy of Jojo’s poster and asking all people passing by if they saw Jojo
- A random person filled up our two-wheeler with free petrol in the middle of the night when we were out on the search for Jojo
- Small stall owners supported us by hanging a poster of Jojo on their stalls. One flower vendor actually took the effort of sticking the poster on a cardboard and inserting it into a transparent plastic bag and then hanging it — all on his own, noticed it on the way back.
- Mothers of some kids who we had handed posters calling up in the evening to enquire if Jojo had returned safely
- Countless people sending Whatsapp messages enquiring if Jojo was found
- So many of our contacts use the Whatsapp status feature with posters/updates
- People calling and offering suggestions to contact Animal communicators — we must have at least received 5,6 leads
- People calling us and giving us suggestions on mantras to chant
- Volunteers spending their own time with us searching for Jojo on the ground in the blistering Pune summer
- Our house helps voluntarily going door to door (after work) in the probable search area asking if Jojo was seen (we came to know this only after the episode)
- A bus repairman called us at 2.30 AM from Swargate bus depot informing us there was an exact same dog at the Swargate bus depot; yes we rushed but it wasn’t Jojo
- Our father’s office employees all came on bikes and assisted us in our search
Why did Jojo run away? Does he do this often?
Some context might help; and again, it’s our version. As a family, we are based out of Bangalore and were visiting friends and relatives in Pune due to the summer vacation. Since it was a 2-week trip, we decided to bring Jojo along with us and we drove down. Yes, Jojo is very comfortable with road trips and travels quite a bit with us. After arriving in Pune, Swati and my daughter went to the in-law’s place leaving Jojo at Swanand’s parents’ place. Jojo is very comfortable with the grandparents as they keep visiting Bangalore often.
On the morning he darted, Swanand was out for breakfast with some friends leaving Jojo at home with the grandparents. Jojo had seen Swanand leave. Essentially, Jojo was separated from the 3 known faces. We believe that he left the house in an attempt to find the 3 folks that he is most familiar with.
Jojo is used to walking around without a leash but never runs away. It was his first time!
But we are grateful to all volunteers who helped us in finding Jojo at the ground level and also to the community members for sharing and posting the collateral in their society’s WhatsApp groups. It helped to spread the word quickly. And we found our baby in 31 hours.
By
GRATEFUL FUR PARENTS
Swati & Swanand Deshpande
