Lost and found: my dog was missing – Pawjourr

Hi, my name is Sheryl I am the “hoosis” of WangWang, some may remember that WangWang was lost a few months back and this is my personal experience.

We see posters of missing dogs, cats, birds, etc around Singapore almost every day, I don’t know about you but truthfully I thought nothing of it and in my mind “This will never happen to Wang”. So from my experience losing WangWang was traumatic, to say the least.

Overestimating

Overestimated myself and WangWang, thinking that she would be fine in a crowd and I could handle her at the same time get food. Around 2pm September 15, in the coffeeshop WangWang got spooked and bolted harness and leash still on, tried calling her while running after her but her fight or flight, flight response was too strong. Almost heading to the main road, her leash got caught onto a pole, people were standing around watching her as she struggles out of her harness, and nope no one helped, either afraid or did not care. Now out of her harness, no collar no tag…

Asking for help

Knowing that I could not catch up, I immediately called Christine from Causes for Animals Singapore (CAS), WangWang’s shelter because I know that they are experienced in such situations, I informed my parents, posted an Instagram story all in the midst of me running around panicking looking for her. Around 4pm, CAS volunteers had printed out posters, posted an Instagram (IG) and Facebook post on a lost dog, along with many sharing the posts on IG.

6pm, people from Sunny Heights, Dawk_star (daycares Wang has been to), my neighbors, even people on IG that we never met before offered to help in the search (which I am so thankful for), contacted SPCA and Animal Communications (AC), basically doing everything we can to locate her but still nothing.

WangWang came back!

1:45am, After hours and hours of searching, putting up posters, and driving around we decided to head Punggol as we received a few phone calls that people spotted a brown dog that looked like her, just then I receive a message saying that a brown dog was lying at the fitness corner with a picture.

2am, recognizing her immediately we rushed back calling my neighbor to try and secure her and it was emotional, I cried my mom cried, WangWang was not hurt but covered in mud and so happy to see us, she was lost for a total of 12 hours, the guy saw a post of a lost dog on IG because of the many people that shared. Also thankful that we got her back before the heavy rain that night!

My initial fear/Conclusion

My fear was that people might not care even if they have spotted her because she looks like an ordinary stray or that other strays in the area might attack her. No one wants to lose their pet so now a collar, tag, and harness is a must for me but if you do, contact any AWGs and an AC immediately for help, unfortunately, they did not reply to us till the next morning. Post on IG and FB, be thick skin and contact anyone you know because pride does not matter at this point. But if you do have the money to splurge a GPS would be the best.

But on a positive note, this proves that Singapore Specials are very intelligent too, the fact that she was able to possibly wait till dark to cross the junction from Seletar mall and find her way back to our usual spot and wait there for us.