Cheras is a town 10 kilometers away from where I am, and Mahkota Cheras is a sprawling township that is connected laterally via a main road that strings all of the development together.

We lost Cookie in this area — an area that has side-to-side pockets of residential houses along with vast grasslands and forests on its fringe. The first two times we saw her, she was on a grassy slope, and the last time we saw her, was that she skidded down — to another residential area. We knew she wouldn’t make it back up again, and therefore had moved on to a bigger area.

We panicked. She could be anywhere.

As we trudged up and down the area, we saw a carcass of a dog that made us fear for the worst (the area has seen plenty of lost dogs). We went back to the site at 10pm, and drove around, desperately searching for her under cars (she loved to crawl under there for refuge — there’s loads of other dogs around, and Cookie was defenseless with a muzzle on, and without food and water, she was getting weaker.

I couldn’t sleep a wink at all. I woke up to a thunderstorm, and my imagination running into overdrive — I worry about her being scared, alone and hungry. What if she was accosted by dogs, or worse, humans?

I went for a meeting this morning, and only went back to the site at around 12pm, and continued our search. We went all around, and by this time, although I am hopeful we will find her again, I was prepared for the worst.

The odds were clearly stacked against us — finding her was like finding a needle in a haystack, and I couldn’t bear to give up, not when she was in that condition.

We went to a secluded strip of road and continued our search, stopping to ask a security guard to see if he saw a dog with a muzzle on wandering the area. Surprisingly — because we asked a lot of people without much success — he said yes.

My dad gave him his mobile number and told him that if he were to spot her again, that he should give him a call — with a reward waiting for him. We went on our search again and settled down for a breather at about 3pm, and just as we were about to leave — my dad for home and my mom, sis and I to stay behind and search for her some more, the security guard called.

We hurried over to where he was, and he took us to her, slowly. And we could see her — hidden underneath some shrubs, still as can be. We could never have found her on our own — the area was so big, and because we could not pinpoint her exact location, the situation was horrible. And to add to that, she could not eat, bark nor defend herself, PLUS she had a big wound on her body that was set to get worse if she didn’t get medical attention.

We crouched down and called her name, but she was apprehensive — my mom shook her vitamin pillbox and cooed her name, and she started to wag a little. As my mom released her muzzle, her tail began to wag faster and harder, shoving her face in between my mom’s hands and licking her. My dad brought along food from a nearby restaurant and we laid them down where she gulped it down with a lot of water. We found her at last!

My mom was so happy because she thought she wouldn’t be able to see her again, as did I. Thirty hours of fear, hunger and loneliness — I think we almost felt the same way (hers was way worse, of course).

It sure feels good to hold her again in my arms.

Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts.