Delhi Loves It’s Dogs: Breezer’s story

So am finally going to write this story with my baby Breezer safe and sound and sitting at my feet as I write this (how appropriate). It has been a very hectic 48 hours for me and my family and I haven’t had the mind-space to even write this so far. So here is the story for all who wish to know…

As some of you know and many of you don’t, this is how we accidentally lost Breezer this Sunday morning. Being a hyperactive 2 year old retriever she slipped out of the main door around 1am Sunday morning. We’re still not quite sure how she managed since it could have been guests who opened the door, the maid and well plenty of other ways. I had gone to bed early that night and the rest of the family assumed she was safe in bed with me. I woke up around 6am to grab a bite of eat since I’d skipped dinner and this is when I realized she was nowhere to be seen. Here began one of the worst 24 hours of our lives.

The first thing we did was get into the car and start looking. This was at around 6am and we were all straight out of bed. It was pure panic and we just drove around in the most obvious place which was the road in front of our house where we walk her (not a small road mind you since we live on the main Alaknanda-GK2 road). We took round after round of that area trying to put ourselves in a 2 year old retriever’s shoes… checking parks, checking lanes, checking areas with food or other dogs, checking roads that branched out from the main road, checking markets anywhere near that road. 3 hours later there was still no sign of her and the panic just kept rising. We realized we had to have a plan and we would have to THINK not just act. Calls went out to multiple places – the police station where a report was lodged, a friend who was told to make a ‘missing-dog’ flier, our vet to ask him what/where we could look… we called everyone we could think of. The realization that we had last seen her at 1am meant she’s already been missing for some hours! She could be anywhere!

One of the first calls I made was to Uma at Friendicoes and I couldn’t have reached someone better at that time. After telling me the story of her dog who she lost and found after 3 days, she told me to just start walking and not op looking till I find her. She told me to make sure every walking person in GK2 was looking for Breezer. She made sure I got it into my head that I could not give up hope no matter how long it took and that I would find her. So right she was.

We printed fliers with her picture and my number – we went to every barber, chana-kulcha wala, shopkeeper, mother dairy, police check-post in a 2 km radius. Every driver or guard in the area was asked but nobody had seen her. We were running out of things to do! Then it was decided that we would look on foot. I and a small army of friends checked every lane in every colony on both sides of the road from my house in GK to Alaknanda (Jhawar, Nishtha, Meghna, Vibha, Roopali, Madhav, Varun I’ll owe u guys always!). We distributed fliers, talked to colony guards, spoke to dog lovers… and everywhere we went we were met by patience and understanding and people willing to help and look for her. It was the thing that kept me and all of us going and hopeful. Barring a few as***** everyone was just incredible… from old people on the streets to fruit sellers to pet owners to cops… everyone did something to help… even if it was just sending out word to friends in neighboring areas.

All day I got calls from people willing to help… from people willing to take time out to pass the word on, from complete strangers who got out of their homes and went looking in their areas… from strangers who drafted e-mails on my behalf and sent them to the world… from dog lovers who made me feel like they love my Breezer as much as me. It was the most incredible feeling given the day I was having. There are so many smaller stories in this big one that I don’t know how to give them their due!!! Like the lady at the printing shop where I printed the fliers who offered me food because she figured I hadn’t eaten… or the cop who offered to give me his dog if I’d stop crying… or the guard who sent his son out to ring doorbells and talk to people for me… so many people sat and prayed for Breezer all day and I think that is what worked… how I finally found her is nothing short of a miracle…

At around 11pm… after 16 hours of searching for her, I had just about given up the on-foot search for the day and sat down exhausted… this is when the phone rings and a person I don’t even know is on the other side of the phone and telling me his friend saw Breezer being put into a car by a driver. The first real lead for the day!!! (We had already heard several which didn’t amount to anything all day). I don’t know who that person was till date and it’s nobody any friend knows directly… (Thank u all for sharing the news.. it was one of your posts that finally helped me get her back)

So it turns out that his friend was walking home the night Breezer ran out of the house and saw her… he tried to first take her home since he figured someone would start looking for her soon enough. When he didn’t manage to hold onto her, he saw a driver put her into a car and like a complete pure genius he noted down the car number (Arjun u saved the day!).

Through the car number we tracked the driver who had taken her home and at 12.30 that night we finally left to pick my baby up… after a long drive to Sangam Vihar where the driver lived, we finally found Breezer!!

I cannot describe the feeling of finally seeing her after 24 hours or what the rest of the night/next day felt like. I don’t know if I’ve done justice to everyone who was so incredible to me and my family. One thing became very clear after this – Delhi really loves it’s dogs!