This is quite a remarkable and true story of how Facebook, mobile communications and the internet found our 3 year old black Labrador Lola when she went missing a couple of months ago.
It seemed such a fab idea at the time. A two night weekend break to Rome as a gift to my husband for his 40th birthday. And then the logistics kicked in. Who would have the children? Who would ferry them to their various hobbies? And, oh no… what would we do with the dog? After painstakingly making all the necessary arrangements, we enlisted the services of a dog walker we had no experience of (dumb owners)! Fear not, we weren’t leaving the poor dog ‘home alone’ for the duration, this was just for the Friday morning before she was collected later in the day by the grandparents!
So, off we went. Giddy and excited about a whole weekend in the glorious city of Rome, just the two of us. No commitments. No cares or worries (ironic - if we only knew what was coming!).
To say this was an ill-fated trip is an understatement. We had attempted to ‘do’ Rome some five years previously, but due to the then striking Alitalia Airline we had been ‘stranded’ in Paris which left Rome as an ‘unconsummated’ love affair. We were also kept waiting on this occasion as we experienced delays and a missed connection. But, we did eventually make it to Rome!
Back to the dog. Late Friday afternoon, in the taxi on the way to our hotel we made the call home and received the words that were once again to deprive us of the Roman Holiday we had dreamed of! “The dog walker has lost Lola”. To any dog owners out there I apologise for the chill that this has just gone down your spine. To make matters worse, she had already been missing for 4 hours. And, to add insult to injury, the dog walker (who shall remain anonymous) had first driven her to a place she had never been to before so Lola (the dog) had no local knowledge of the area in which she had been lost.
At this point, as often happens when couples face these situations, one cracks and the other takes command. I was the one to remain calm and focused at this point. My meltdown came later! By the time we got to the hotel room (quickest, most perfunctory check-in ever) we had set out our tools to convert our bedroom in to Central Command Mission HQ. Two iphones one ipad (also a 40th present), Google Maps, Facebook and of course the mini-bar.
Our military style campaign to find the dog commenced 1700 hours CET or 1600 hours GMT! First we mobilised the land infantry. We phoned and texted everyone we knew in a 10 mile radius of where she was lost. Anyone who was able to get out and pound the pavements.. and fields.. and forests went straight out there. Fabulous. Great response and we were immediately humbled and indebted by everyone’s response.
Second, we posted it on our Facebook pages. Now, this is where it gets really interesting. Within minutes we started to build a picture of ‘sightings’. With the help of a map on the iPad we were able to plot her route. One of our friends has a 17 year old son. He picked up our plea on Facebook and re-posted it. Think of the local network of ‘Facebook-using’ friends of a boy of this age. Imagine his friends networks. It’s a Friday evening. You have just got home from college. Of course you’re on Facebook!
The responses came flooding in. She was seen on such-a-road at about 2pm or she was nearly knocked down (!!) on such-a-street at about 3pm. Then came the ‘intel’ from the ground. Our troop of foot soldiers were asking anyone they passed if they had seen a black Labrador with a red collar with white bones on it. Again, information by text started to filter through to HQ. We could clearly track her movements with approx times on our map and therefore pre-empt which way she was heading. As more of our friends returned from work on the Friday, the bigger and more viral this went. It seemed that everyone was reposting our plea on their Facebook pages. Dog-loving friends of friends of friends were getting in touch with sightings. Teenage friends of friends of friends’ sons were posting sightings!
We tactically moved the ground troops to where she had most recently been sighted and ahead of this point in every direction possible by road / fields / through gardens etc.
At approximately 2030 - Voila! Out she popped. Unfortunately, she was so spooked at this point that the sound and site of one of our friends shouting excitedly at her and running towards here made her run in the opposite direction (dumb dog) and straight in to the path of a white van on the main road. Thank you whoever you are for your lightning quick reactions and ability to swerve in time to miss her. She disappeared in to the darkness once again.
This particular night was cold and wet. Many of our friends had been out since 4pm with no food or drink and many with their children in tow. The sightings dried up. We think at this point that our poor dog was traumatised and tired and instinctively found somewhere safe and dry to curl up and sleep. We started to urge our brave foot soldiers to return home. However, the search continued with many of our friends returning later in the night to the area she was last seen to have one last look around. We had Facebook postings (all fruitless) and text messages coming through well in to the early hours.
We booked seats on the 1st flight home to Manchester on Saturday morning. Above all else we wanted to get home to the children who were broken hearted at the loss of their pet. During this sleepless night we did manage to eat and drink the entire mini-bar (my afore mentioned meltdown). Macadamia nuts, spirits and all! An achievement never before accomplished. And one which we shamefacedly confessed to the hotel staff in the morning. They were anxious that we were leaving so early and in the confusion of the pigeon English and worse still our scratchy attempt at Italian that I think they thought we had had a family bereavement and waived the charge. Charming lovely people. We must have looked dreadful.
It was whilst in the taxi at 0730 returning to the airport that we received a call from our good friend Scott. This time with decidedly better news. He had driven back to the spot where she had last been seen (playing with a white van) when she ambled out from someone’s garden to come and say hello to Scott’s dog, Pasha. Grab. Click on a lead. Safe.
We erupted in the back of the taxi. We laughed. We cried. We hugged each other. Who said the English are suppressed and lacking in emotion and passion? That Italian taxi driver must surely have a different opinion of the stiff-upper-lip English stereotype. And of course he probably thought we were complete weirdo’s too.
So. What did we do next? Well, of course we texted, we posted and we telephoned. Instantly broadcasting the good news. The search was off. Put your wellies away. Go back to bed. Re-post. Put it on your wall. We still came home. Rome remains unconquered.
When speaking to friends in the days that followed our return. These are some comments we picked up:
When quizzing passers by if they had seen a dog fitting Lola’s description – some had actually responded ‘is it the same one that’s lost on Facebook?’
My father in law (boldly) approached a gang of ‘hoodies’ who ordinarily he would cross the street to avoid. They said that they were already out looking for her because they had seen a post on Facebook that she had been sighted on their road ‘Well I love dogs, me. I had one when I was little. And we had nothing else to do, like. So we thought we’d have a look’. They had even taken a note of our mobile number.
One friend nipped in to a couple of local pubs to ask around and the locals already knew.. you guessed it. Their teenage children had told them or they had dogs themselves and someone had posted it on their Wall.
Interestingly I had also tweeted the news about our dog and had no response whatsoever. This has further illustrated to me that my usage of Twitter and Facebook are very different. Facebook is mainly local and personal. Despite the ability to connect with friends all over the world. Twitter is certainly more national and to a degree international, but mainly ‘regional’ ie north west. But this is very different to communicating in a 10 mile radius of where we live. Plus I really only use it for professional purposes.
As well as being a big deal for us in terms of having a pretty awful experience in life, it has also been a fascinating social media exercise. Without knowing it we launched a targeted social media campaign aimed at teenagers and dog lovers. They did the work for us. We lit the touch paper and off it went, lighting up the homes and streets of a small area on the outskirts of Bury in Lancashire. And although super hero Scott was the one to scoop the prize, our friends, family and acquaintances all linked by the web and the mobile phone network made it happen and for that we are truly grateful. Without the human element, the technological side couldn’t have happened, so maybe Facebook didn’t actually find my dog – but would we have found her without it?
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