Never give up looking for lost pets

Mia Sagara, left, poses with Fuzzy and Dr. Shin Un-chul of the D&C Pet Animal Clinic in Mapo, Seoul, in July after finding the lost dog on a mountain in the city. Fuzzy was neutered, microchipped, groomed and tested for diseases at the clinic. / Courtesy of D&C Pet Animal Clinic

By Eileen Cahil

When Mia Sagara printed “lost dog” posters at work, she got a reprimand. Co-workers at her English hagwon (cram school) told her to give up looking for the little brown and white dog she’d rescued two months earlier.

Sagara, 40, had bronchitis and barely had the strength to keep working, but she checked the online lost-and-found listings every day and used social networking sites to publicize Fuzzy’s picture.

She knows she made mistakes: Fuzzy wasn’t wearing an ID tag the day he ran away in June. She’d meant to get him neutered and microchipped, but put it off because a hostile work environment was affecting her health.

Sagara was walking Fuzzy near her home in Seoul when she needed a drink to soothe her sore throat. She left him tied up outside while she ran into a coffee shop.

From the window she saw a strange man. Though Fuzzy was affectionate and loving with Sagara, he was skittish with strangers.

“I could see Fuzzy through the glass,” she told The Korea Times. “He was looking right at me and was calm. Then a guy came and started petting him. He seemed OK. Then, seconds after I turned my head, a woman came screaming.”

“Your dog!” the woman yelled.

Somehow Fuzzy’s harness had come undone in front of a group of children, who thought they were helping when they chased the dog down a side street.

Sagara ran out of the coffee shop and yelled at the children to stop, but Fuzzy disappeared. So she walked around and approached neighbors, extending her cell phone to show them Fuzzy’s picture.

“The first two nights after losing Fuzzy I slept outside by garbage,” she said.

Every night she walked the streets posting signs, but there was no sign of Fuzzy.

“I ripped up T-shirts of mine and tied them to trees, fences and poles for a few miles,” she said.

Two weeks passed, and Sagara was losing hope, but she hired a company to put up 2,000 posters. One night in July, she got a tip. Someone had seen a stray dog while hiking and texted a blurry picture to Sagara’s Korean friend.

The dog’s face was unmistakable, so Sagara and two friends took the subway to a mountain four stations away. After putting up posters for an hour and a half, she was about to go home.

“I think you should come out here,” Sagara’s friend told her over the phone.

Fuzzy was at the top of a staircase, but Sagara didn’t recognize him. He was filthy, and he looked more like a fox than a dog. She offered him food, but he backed away.

Following the advice of professional pet detectives, Sagara didn’t move toward Fuzzy or call him. She looked away, crouching down with the food in her hand.

Two days later, Sagara updated Fuzzy’s Facebook page and posted a picture of him, clean and safe. She offered a reward to the hikers who had taken his picture, but they wouldn’t accept any money.

Sagara now has two dogs: She found Mila, a Maltese, while looking for Fuzzy. She put up posters but couldn’t find Mila’s original family.

“The morning after I lost him, with a bad fever and raging headache, I spotted Mila dodging cars and bikes in the middle of an eight-lane intersection,” she said. “... I grabbed her, took her back to my apartment, went to work, left work to get the shot and meds from the clinic, checked in on her, and continued my search for Fuzzy while caring for her too.”