Yesterday, we met an owner who was desperately looking for his missing dog, a Saluki (a racing dog). According to the owner, Mr Tan, two of his dogs escaped during the previous night’s fireworks (Deepavali eve), one returned but the other, Layla, was still missing. I asked him for photographs and sent out an alert.
We went round our neighbourhood, but did not spot her. Mr Tan says she was spotted coming into our area. Mr Tan even brought his two dogs to walk around our neighbourhood, hoping they would draw Layla out, but to no avail.
This morning, during my walk, I saw one of our animal-friendly neighbours near an abandoned security hut. Gerald was there too, mooching around. This neighbour had already spotted Layla yesterday morning, at 10am, but he did not know Layla was a missing dog. Layla was lying under the hut. Actually, his dogs spotted Layla during their walk. In any case, he was trying to lure Layla out with food, but she didn’t budge at all. He tried again in the evening, but Layla would not budge.
Only this morning, he saw the notice about her being a missing dog, sent from a friend who is overseas(!), and so he quickly called Mr Tan. Mr Tan came but could not get Layla out from under the hut. Mr Tan then called his family and they brought their two other dogs to entice Layla to come out. The entire rescue operation took half an hour and finally, they managed to get Layla out from under the hut. One of her legs is injured but it doesn’t look too serious.
It takes a village, doesn’t it? An entire worldwide network, in this case!
So glad Layla is safe and sound now.
But on a more serious note, how many more animals have to become victims of fireworks?