Elderly couple’s emotional reunion with their missing pet after more than a month

Elderly couple in Kochi reunites with missing dog after month-long search, relieved but worried about her trauma.

For over a month, Basil Thomas, 64, and wife Betaluna, 57, had received every phone call and WhatsApp message with bated breath and anticipation of some much awaited good news about their missing dog Kunji.

Eventually, it came on Friday night, when they received a call from a person who told them that he had perhaps spotted their three-and-a-half-year-old Rajapalyam pet at Vazhakkala, just a few kilometres from Puzhakkarapadam at Vennala where they lived.

“We rushed to the spot and confirmed that it was indeed our pet. However, she seemed to be in a trauma and kept running away from us. We somehow managed to bring her back. But she is still keeping aloof as if complaining about why we let her get lost,” said Mr. Thomas.

On Apri 13 (Saturday), Kunji was taken to a veterinarian who said she was alright and assured that she would be back to her old ways before long. For the elderly couple whose two children are abroad, the two pet dogs, the other being a Labrador, are like family members and missing one of them one-and-a-half-month ago was nothing less than traumatic.

Kunji had gone missing late one night and the couple realised it only later. As soon as they did, Mr. Thomas along with his friends had launched a mass hunt for her centered around a residential colony of 75-odd houses in the neighbourhood till early hours of the day.

“Later, while checking the CCTV images did we realise that, while we were searching for her in the colony, she had somehow reached the main road. She perhaps got chased by some strays or landed in front of motorists and lost direction,” said Mr. Thomas.

Anguished, the couple printed a leaflet bearing the dog’s picture and got it distributed with newspapers and forwarded it across social media platforms. Since then, they had received many calls and text messages but only to leave them even more disappointedt.