I have an amazing story to tell.

It all started and ended with social media.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

I was away in KL when it all happened. Having found a prepaid plan to fund my Blackberry usage in Malaysia, I left my Singapore number stored away, which meant that nobody could contact me except via email.

Which was fine, I thought, since it was a weekend anyway, and most of my work was settled so why not make the most of my holiday?

Little did I know that Scruffy had gone missing in the morning. My sister let Scruffy out on his usual pee routine.

Scruffy is not paper-trained. We got him when he was about two, so it was too late to give him any proper training. But over the years, we formulated a routine that we thought worked best for his pee and poo business, since he wouldn't do it in the house and he was so fond of dashing out (we live on the ground floor).



WHAT WENT WRONG

My sister was rushing off to be some where and judging by his pee routine, she thought that Mum would be wrapping it up as usual.

But Mum couldn't, because my parents were out of the country!

She only realised so when Mum texted a reminder to "let the dog out" and by the time she got back three hours later, Scruffy was gone.

It was very worrying because Scruffy has snuck out before but he has always dutifully returned home and sit at the front steps, waiting for us to open the door for him.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL #1: FACEBOOK

After searching for over 12 hours and not being able to contact me, my sister used the tool which she knew we connected best in: Facebook.

(Because she doesn't tweet and we find it disturbing to read each other's blogs.)



I got it about midnight and when I reached Singapore, I woke her up to ask about Scruffy. By then, he was missing for about 16 hours.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL #2: TWITTER

Feeling pretty desperate at this point, I thought it'd be no harm to tweet about it.

So I did.



I didn't expect much out of Twitter. It was more of to let my friends know and hopefully, they would pass it on to friends who live in the East.

But I was WRONG.



My Twitter retweets were overwhelming.

I had about 70 retweets within two hours. The response was so ridiculous, I actually felt guilty for "spamming" Twitter with my lost dog ad.

The interesting thing was that through all my followers, the message actually reached leading Twitterers in Singapore like MrMiyagi, Xiaxue, PatLaw, who further spread the message - thank you, you guys for having a big heart!

DAY TWO: SCRUFFY'S DISAPPEARANCE

Day Two was spent mostly making a police report, calling up SPCA and sorting out Scruffy's microchip number.

As Scruffy was adopted by me, I went back to his previous owner to ask for his dog licence and that's when we both found out for three years, both parties thought that the other party had it. *facepalm

By Day Two, we still didn't have much progress, save for a few weird phone calls.

("Hi, I saw Scruffy running happily with a pedigree dog. I think he's happy right now. Bye!" / "How old is your lost dog? Because my daughter insisted I call up to ask.")

The torrential rain also made matters worse by dampening our spirits and the posters that we put out in the streets.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL #3: PLURK

I was depressed at work until Sheylara MSNed me just as I was about to knock off, asking me if I was free to meet up near my place to search for Scruffy, because "Goonfather plurked about it and got a search group going".


And at 7.30pm the Club Morte group gathered, about eight of us, split up into smaller groups and headed off in different directions to search for Scruffy.



We stuck up more posters, approached dog owners and passers-by. Then everybody ate a little supper before heading home.

I was really, really touched.

DAY THREE: SCRUFFY'S DISAPPEARANCE

On Day Three, we were still getting weird calls. ("Can you give me your address so I can come by and search for Scruffy together with you?")

By this day I was missing my dog a whole lot. The empty dog bed and silence when I came home was hitting me hard.



My sister left a Facebook comment and it was the trigger to my dam. I was balling my eyes out in the office when I saw the comment. What if Scruffy doesn't come home at all??

At night I went out to search for Scruffy but it rained pretty badly again so it was minimal, what I could do.

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL #4: BLOGGING

I decided to post up a blog post about Scruffy, just in case people searched online and hopefully, they'd get directed to my blog.

After I published my post, I saw a message left on my blog! It was a really short message the day before, asking me to call a particular number.


I called at noon, but there was no answer. Tried again many times until at about 8pm, a lady picked up and spoke to me!

She described Scruffy as a "grey and brown dog" that "hops around" when he runs.

I was getting excited by this minute. "Are you sure?!" I asked.

And she went on to say that Scruffy was very greedy, and jumped very high when she gave him food.

I was 90% sure it was Scruffy. I grabbed her address and scheduled to meet her in an hour's time, when she would be home.



I tweeted about it to update everybody, and many replied with well-wishes. I even got anxious calls asking if I've met up with the lady yet!

FINDING SCRUFFY
When I reached her home, I saw two dogs greeting me at the door.

And one of the dogs, was my beloved Scruffy!

The lady, whom I later knew as Auntie Teresa, let him out and he started sniffing and licking me all over.

We spoke about how she came to contact me, and it was actually via her daughter Dolly.

It's all one big story, saved for Part Two, but for now you guys should know that Dolly found me through Twitter!

Social media sure rocks!