Sheltered animals and big cities do not mix well at all. That’s an old, universally-known truth. The busy streets with danger in every corner are no place for an indoor-pet. I mean, haven’t you seen Homeward Bound or The Aristocats?
So it’s not unusual that Rustico Samson Jr. and his family were an emotional wreck for the 3 long months that their dog, Coco, went missing in the Philippines. Coco is a mutt, not a purebred.
That already presents a bit of a challenge in finding him. Every dog roaming the streets is a mutt, so it’ll take some sharp-eyes to spot Coco.
Plus, 3 months is a very long time. A lost, scared dog could have wandered anywhere from down city to the next town in that time. And that’s already assuming nothing bad happened to them.
Though Samson loved Coco far too much to give up. Be assured of it, Samson did everything possible to find Coco. He talked to everyone he knew, and then people he didn’t know. He scoured every last alley and busy street, and described Coco as best he could to other people in hopes that they’d help.
Coco’s disappearance dealt a nasty blow to Samson’s heart, and he mentioned crying while searching for him.
Though those waterworks and all that searching eventually did pay off. When those 3 months had gone, someone contacted Samson and reported seeing a lost dog in parking lot somewhere.
The dog fit Coco’s description, and after 3 long months with no results, this was the much-needed light at the end of a tunnel.
It turned out that Coco had wandered miles away in those 3 months. Samson’s family are residents of Taguig, a sizable city in its own right. It sits at 7th place on the list of most populated cities in the Philippines.
Containing the highly developed and lived-in Bonifacio Global City too, finding a lost pet would be a herculean task. The dog went missing all the way back in June. Samson was worried sick, day and night.
He went above and beyond to find Coco in this massive city – in the middle of a pandemic, no less.
When Samson arrived at the parking lot in question and caught sight of the dog, the emotions came pouring down harder than any typhoon. He knew for a fact this was Coco, and the dog was just as emotional as he was to be reunited.
Coco can be heard, quite loudly and clearly, crying and whimpering while burying his face in Samson. After what seemed like impossible odds, he was found. Samson went on to say that he almost felt like Coco never wanted him to get out of sight again.
I’m sure Samson felt the same.
After the story went viral, Samson was keen to share more details to the story. In particular, how Coco came to be lost in the first place. The following information is translated from an interview he did.
In that unfortunate month of June earlier this year, Samson’s brother took a bike ride to work. Coco followed him, and got lost on the way.
The pandemic did nothing but worsen his anxieties over Coco as well. He touched on the fact that malls, restaurants and diners everywhere were closed.
“The fact that all the malls and restaurants are closed down because of the pandemic made me worry even more. If my lost dog was wandering the streets and got hungry, there’d be few places for him to get scraps or leftovers.”
Plus, his call that Coco always responded to was a one-syllable, non-specific “Co!”.
And of all people to have found his dog, it was his cousin who lived in the same city. She’d seen the dog on the streets on more than one occasion, but didn’t know it was Coco who’d wandered from her cousin’s home.
When she learned of the connection, she filmed the dog and sent the video to Samson for confirmation. That then led to the events that transpired in the video. Talk about unlikely odds!
It’s the heart-string pulling, wholesome sweetness that most of us needed to see in quarantine. Watch Samson and Coco’s happy ending down below, and don’t forget to click share!
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