A three-month old Pomeranian puppy has been reunited with his owner after a charity specializing in reuniting lost and missing pets with their owners traced him to Alberta.
Two-and-a-half pound Nugget went missing, along with his owner’s truck and camper, on May 26 from a Langford job site. Shawnigan Lake RCMP found the camper abandoned later that day, but the grey Ford F-250 truck and Nugget were nowhere to be found.
After ROAM (Reuniting Owners with Animals Missing) posted a picture of Nugget on its social media page, anonymous tips from the public arrived immediately.
“We got some leads from reliable sources,” said Lesli Steeves, one of the founders of the group.
“After corroborating some of the tips, I narrowed it down, had a good idea who had him and where the person resided.
“I reached out to her on social media. She initially did not respond, but I persevered. Eventually, she did reply and confirmed that she had Nugget.”
Steeves spent a few days corresponding with the person, trying to win over her trust and reminding her that the dog had been stolen and that his owner was missing him.
“I think that got to her because she had confided to me that she had her dog stolen in the past,” said Steeves, who has used social media to successfully find other dogs in the past.
“Plus, she said that people were beginning to say bad things about her,” said Steeves.
“She told me that she had nothing to do with the theft, but had received the dog as a present, presumably from the same person who stole the truck.”
The recipient eventually agreed to return Nugget and dropped him off at the Brooks Animal Protection Society in Brooks, about 190 kilometres east of Calgary.
Nugget was picked up and driven back to Victoria where on Monday he was reunited with his owner, a construction worker from the Lower Mainland.
“Social media can be so mean and horrible, but when it is used for things like this, it can be magical,” said Steeves.
ROAM was founded in 2016. The volunteer-run charity offers owners of missing dogs and cats a place to post notices of their lost animals on its Facebook page. The posts remain active until resolved.
