Wonderful news came in the form of a white and tan dog on Tuesday 6th April 2021, as Bay, the now 6.5-year-old Basenji-mix was returned home after being missing for 5 years!
Bay had been only 1.5-years-old when she had gone missing from her dog sitter’s home whilst her owners were away. The Missing Dogs Massachusetts (MDM) website and Facebook page had reported on her absence originally on 26th June 2016.
Unsurprisingly, the Massachusetts missing dog report site was more than thrilled to let everybody know that this sweet pup had been located and returned home, captioning their post with “HUGE news to share this morning and also something to give every owner HOPE!”
This sweet Basenji mix had originally gone missing from Beacon Street / Cavanaugh Road in Framington during June of 2016 and was eventually found in Needham, roughly 10 miles away from her home. The Missing Dogs Massachusetts Facebook post explains that at the time of her disappearance those looking for Bay had only had sporadic sightings to go on, with cameras yielding no results.
In 2019, there had been sightings of Bay wandering the streets in Needham, but she was mistakenly identified as Cannoli, a dog that had gone missing from Stoughton in 2018. MDM had followed up on these reports, but after watching out for her and noticing her occasional appearance at the town dump and on a property in the town it was determined that was not Cannoli.
“Many people had also been feeding the dog. It was thought that the dog had an owner and was allowed to roam. The dog would then go off the grid as they often do.” explained the Missing Dogs Massachusetts post caption.
Danielle M., an MDM volunteer, had kept in contact with Lisa, the lady who had originally reported the sightings of Bay. As it turns out, Bay, the dog Lisa had reported in 2019, had recently started to visit her home again on a regular basis, and so she had started to feed it.
After 5 years of living on the street, Bay could not be easily caught and attempts to trap her in order to capture her had failed.
Danielle M. and Deb B., both of whom often volunteer to help with lost dog searches for MDM, had decided to reach out to the Needham Animal Control Office (ACO) for help in capturing the poor girl. An Animal Control Officer by the name of Parsons joined in their efforts to trap Bay and decided that a kennel trap would be the best approach.
It took several days for Parsons, Deb, and Danielle to construct the kennel trap. Once construction was complete, and they were sure that the trap would be able to hold our lost dog, they went live with it on the morning of 6th April. It didn’t take long for Bay to finally be caught so that she could be cared for.
Once she was brought into Animal Control to be looked over and scanned, they found she had a microchip linking her back to the reported loss of Bay, the Basenji mix, in the Framington area almost 5 years prior!
The poor pup still had her martingale collar around her neck, which had now become embedded and needed to be cut from her. Somewhere along the way she had lost her tags, and the collar had given people the impression that she was already owned by someone local, meaning her living in Needham had gone unnoticed for some time.
She is now safely home with her dog-mom, who had only had Bay for six short months before her disappearance. MDM followed up their joyous announcement with a video showing Bay’s tail wagging uncontrollably as she was given back to her mom.
Unrequited proof that all is not necessarily lost when a puppy runs away, and a beacon of hope for owners of lost dogs that their pup may one day return home.
