The owner was nowhere to be found.
We followed him to the beach, and saw him picking up dead washed up fish from the sand and gobbling it down. Then he went for a swim in the sea.
He was definitely a vagrant dog. But where was his owner? Passers-by ignored him and Muslim families shunned him. It was a matter of time before someone called the AVA to take him away.
At first we just wanted to take a picture of this boy and share it on Facebook. But after much deliberating (we couldn't bear the sight of him drinking sea water), we decided to take him home.
I guess we couldn't bear the thought of someone abusing him, or worse still, being put down by AVA.
He was a sweet and mild tempered boy, and went willingly with us. He even seemed familiar with the car, and jumped right in without much coaxing. He stank though.
It was a worry-ful 48 hours as we shared his picture on Facebook and bathed, fed him, and kept him company. He was so quiet, sweet and docile, and even got along with Boss the bunny. He never barked once.
But he had a hip dysplasia problem and had difficulty getting up. We figured he was quite old. We called SPCA to report our finding of this dog. Over the weekend, apparently no one reported a lost Golden Retriever, our hearts sank. Who could bear to abandon this sweetie?
We brought him to the vet the next day for a checkup and to scan for a microchip. Good news is that he has one, but SPCA is unable to access their database to check on the microchip number on a weekend and we had to wait for Monday for the owner's contact details. Meanwhile the vet bills went up to $140 as he apparently has a ear infection and his microbes need to be sent to the lab for a culture test.
We also spent another $40 buying a new collar and eardrops for him.
Meanwhile through the power of Facebook and talking to kind strangers, many people offered to adopt him.
That was a relief as we know if his owner abandoned him, there was no shortage of people willling to take him in.
Golden Retrievers and pedigree dogs are so lucky aren't they?
Late Sunday night, someone saw one of our shared posts on Facebook and claimed that the Golden Retriever was theirs.
We called her up, and she managed to verify all his ailments and details, appearing rather flustered. She couldn't explain why she didn't contact the SPCA though. She said she never lost him before so the thought never occurred to her.
She appeared quite worried though and drove down immediately with a bit of his leash and his microchip sticker just in case we needed more verification.
The lost Golden's name is Yoshi. He's 9 years old and he had an operation for his hip, which was why he has difficulty getting up. She also knows he had an ear infection. Apparently their maid left the gate open and that's how he wandered out. He was adopted by her and her family 3 years ago.
We told her to take better care of him and get him a dog tag. She said she would.
She also said she felt irresponsible for letting him get lost like this.
I asked her if she was willing to pay the vet bill and she paid us without hesitation. She also sent us a picture of him when he was safe at home. Here it is.
He looks much better doesn't he? Andy misses him very much and asked the owner whether we could visit her. Unfortunately there was no reply from her thereafter.
Meanwhile, mummy decided to donate some of the reimbursed vet bills to other animal welfare organisations. There are so many organisations needing help for sick and injured animals, that mummy doesn't know where to start.
So today mummy took half day leave to rest from the utterly spent weekend and looked at all her Facebook posts.
Here's who she donated to:
Hope Dog Rescue $20
Animal Lovers League $20
Exclusively Mongrels $20
Mutiara Rini Dog Shelter $20
They all help street/stray dogs who are sick and injured or badly abused by people.
Mummy thinks that while pedigree dogs get easily adopted, no one wants to adopt a stray dog, and they are really have a hard life trying to find food and shelter and also trying to keep away from dog abusers like Francis Lee (who owns a deceptive company called Animal Rescue & Ambulance).
So they need all the help they can get.
Will you do your part too?
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