How a deaf dog united this LI community

My faith in humanity has been restored.  After two years of pandemic seclusion while watching the country divide itself over politics and vaccinations, seeing turmoil between maskers and non-maskers, my world came together in an unexpected, united mission.

On a Saturday earlier this year, I decided to break out of hibernation in Commack and spend the day in the city. Good friends in Dix Hills offered to take care of my 13-year-old, deaf dog. After the 10:30 a.m. drop-off at the couple’s Dix Hills home, however, Mallomar managed to squeeze her way out of their fenced-in backyard and set out on a journey that became my nightmare. The couple’s video doorbell confirmed Mally’s escape as she strolled down their driveway. 

After receiving the call on my cellphone that she was missing, I jumped on the next train out of Penn Station heading toward Babylon.  Through tears, my next call from the train was to an out-of-state friend who had volunteered for Long Island Lost Dog Search and Rescue when she lived in Kings Park. Within minutes, I had texts from these amazing volunteers, on their way to Dix Hills to find my dog.

Several texts and social media posts later, my neighbors, friends and my Kings Park dog walker arrived. By the time I returned to Dix Hills around 4:30, flyers were already printed, social media details were posted, and the search was on.  Cameras and alluring food stations were set up, but sightings? None.  I returned home at 11 p.m. and barely slept three hours. 

The next day, Super Bowl Sunday, I was back out at 6 a.m. with snow falling. It wasn’t the ideal weather to find a lost white, 15-pound Tibetan Terrier.  The hunt continued with neighbors, friends and dog searchers, about 30 in all. As we handed flyers to snow plowers and workers driving sand trucks, they promised to look for Mally and called in sightings throughout the afternoon. Mally had safely made her way through Dix Hills Park and across Vanderbilt Parkway. 

A Dix Hills fire commissioner texted me that he sent people out to help. The local police department promised to let us know if they spotted Mally. The stressful search was exhausting as I rang dozens of doorbells near her sighting, asking whether I could inspect backyards, under decks and in sheds.  Sleep, food and hot showers weren’t thought of. My daughter’s former Commack soccer teammates and Commack High School friends joined the search, as did their parents and Huntington Facebook friends from a Tibetan Terrier group.

I returned home empty-handed and hopeless at 6 p.m. Sunday. I hadn’t eaten since lunch on Saturday, and a friend brought me dinner, forcing me to eat. 

On Monday morning, at 7 a.m., some 41 hours after Mally began her great adventure, a woman in Dix Hills called and said, “I have your dog!” Her two Great Danes were barking during the night, alerting her to a surprise visitor in their backyard.  When she went out with a plate of steak, Mally approached her, and the kind woman wrapped Mally in blankets and brought her inside.

I cried and hugged friends and strangers who have become friends.  Whether they wore a face mask or were vaccinated was irrelevant. We were all Long Islanders united to find a deaf dog who may have been unable to make it on her own without her medicine, food and water. I was grateful, and in that moment, all was right with the world.

Reader Michele Pincus lives in Commack.