When Fango, a five-month-old Australian Shepherd, reported his alleged kidnapping to employees of a pet store in Gatineau, Quebec, they may have played a role in his rescue.
Fango entered the store accompanied by a couple who usually came to buy cat food, according to Yves Goodwin, an employee and dog trainer at Au Royom d’Animaux.
Goodwin recalled the dog was “barking, pushing, and trying hard to get my attention.”
Goodwin recalled being immediately concerned when the couple didn’t know basic information about the dog, including its exact age, whether it was neutered, what type of food it was fed, and how much they had paid for it.
Goodwin added, “They were avoiding inquiries. The dog was still barking even though I was feeding it biscuits.”
Meanwhile, a colleague began searching social media for reports of stolen dogs and quickly found a photo of Fango. A little over two and a half hours earlier, the dog’s home in Buckingham, Quebec, had been found missing.
Goodwin suddenly realized he had trained Fango when it was a puppy, so he already knew the dog.
I shouted, “Fango, come!” At that moment, Goodwin recalled the dog jumping in response. It was trying to say, “Hey, I’m not the dog they say I am,” by barking and twitching.
The two claimed they had found the dog in the woods. Due to her deteriorating health and her inability to afford to buy and train a dog, the woman told Goodwin she wanted to keep it as a support animal.
At the store, Goodwin urged the couple to give up the dog while they were surrounded by onlookers. He then called José Francoir, the rightful owner. To Fango.
Francoeur said of the time she received Goodwin’s call, “I can’t talk about it without crying.”
Francoeur claimed the dog disappeared after she let it out to relieve itself in her closed yard around 9 a.m. on Monday. Fango was gone when she peered through the door; it wasn’t microchipped.
Could it have been taken? Who could? It’s impossible!
Francoeur posted a missing animal alert as soon as possible on other social media platforms and the local Humane Society website. She walked around her neighborhood crying, asking everyone she encountered if they’d seen her dog. Eventually, a police officer stepped in to help and filed an official missing dog report.
When her phone rang, she began to lose confidence.
“Imagine,” Franccoeur continued. “If those people hadn’t gone to the pet store, I would have lost my dog forever.”
She has now filed a police report because she wants the couple to know the consequences of their behavior.
“I don’t want to cause them any problems. We don’t know why they did it. But they took my child at that exact moment,” Francoeur continued. “I want to deter others from doing that.”
Before charging the couple, Gatineau police said they must prove they intentionally stole the dog rather than finding it by chance.
The Luttawa Humane Society is using this incident to remind dog owners to microchip their pets. This is the same facility where the couple took Fango that morning to register the dog with a new name.
“All of this could have been avoided,” she said
Credit to the original owner~