Duck the Dog Comes Home News

After eight frantic days of searching, posting flyers, scouring social media and the city, dog owners Sam Roth and Helena Yoo were finally reunited with Duck, their red haired mini-dachshund who escaped his leash and went missing in Central Park. The dog was found in the Bronx on Monday, giving a happy ending to every dog owner’s worst nightmare.

It all started when the engaged couple had their apartment cleaned last week and left their vacuum-phobic dogs Duck and Robin, also a dachshund, in the hands of Priceless Pet Services, a doggy daycare. Located at 100th and Central Park West, Priceless Pets takes clients’ dogs on day walks around Central Park. Duck got off his leash at 100th and Central Park West, sprinting away from his dog walker and out of sight.

Duck’s leash, unbroken and fully functioning after the incident, seems to prove a human error is the cause of his escape. Yoo guesses the clasp did not properly close.

“It’s not about blame. Priceless Pets has been very good to our dogs,” Yoo said. “But in this case, there was clearly some mistake that happened.”

Unsure of how to find the little dog in New York City, the couple sought help and comfort from New Yorkers. They papered subways and poles with over 3,000 information fliers. A “Find Duck” Facebook page was created and got over 300 “likes,” complete with an email address, FindDuckNYC@gmail.com, for sending tips and advice. Roth and Yoo even posted a thread on Reddit, garnishing 1,758 points and over 200 comments within three days. Scrolling through responses, a community genuinely concerned with the dog and his family’s well being emerges. Redditors suggested search methods, provided names of pet services and even posted potential sightings of the animal.

“I think [Duck’s story] touched a chord really deep inside a lot of people, because we trust our dogs, who are members of our family, with dog walkers many times,” Yoo said. “It could have happened to anyone.”

A Redditor suggested that Yoo and Roth hire SMART Dogs, a non-profit out of Connecticut, to bring a tracking dog to Central Park and sniff out Duck’s trail. The dog, who can detect both air and ground scents, smelled Duck’s collar and lead the couple to 111th St. and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. before coming to a dead stop. This could indicate, Yoo said, a spot where Duck was picked up by someone.

“Sometimes a dog will be picked up and then thrown out of cars if they act naughty in the car,” Yoo said.

Given the number of people who knew about Duck’s predicament, it’s not surprising that a stranger is responsible for his homecoming. A man saw Duck’s flier in Harlem and realized he had seen the dog earlier that day in Pulaski Park in the Bronx, near Bruckner Boulevard. He returned to the Bronx the following day, and, on the lookout for Duck after seeing the flier, noticed the dog a second time in the same neighborhood as the day before. When he attempted to grab the pooch, a frightened Duck sprinted to a grassy patch near the Major Deegan Expressway. The man promptly called the couple, who rushed there from their uptown apartment.

“When Duck saw Sam, he just leapt into Sam’s arms,” Yoo said.

The couple was reunited with a much thinner Duck, who was wearing a metal collar that didn’t belong to him as well as his original collar with tags engraved with Yoo and Roth’s information.

“The person, whoever found him and put the new collar on, clearly had seen Duck was a loved pet and had a phone number, but they just didn’t call us,” Yoo said.

Though the couple will happily celebrate their once-again complete family this weekend with a “Welcome Home” party for their pet, they are left to reckon whom they can trust to care for their animals.

“I think we’re going to have to think long and hard about putting him on another dog walk, because it seems like a challenge [for a dog walker] to walk all the dogs together safely,” Roth said.

For some New York City dog owners, situations like Duck’s make them unable to leave their pets with anyone.

“It would have to be a personal friend who might have dog walking as a career, but I don’t even use those services,” Dustin Presley, a dog owner on the Upper East Side said. “If you’re going to have a pet, you should be as responsible as you can personally for it.”

Many, however, believe cherry-picking their dog walkers eliminates the need to worry.

“I made [a potential dog walker] walk with me and my dog once around the Museum of Natural History before I allowed him to be my dog walker,” Jeffrey Sobodash from the Upper West Side said.

Paulo Ramos, a dog walker from Astoria who was out in Central Park with his charges, said the key to controlling dogs on a walk is knowing their temperament before taking them out.

“I only pick dogs that are kind of good, not truly badly behaved, to make it easier. If it’s a harder dog, I’ll just walk one dog at a time,” Ramos said.

Duck’s story does not incite worry in some dog owners. Meghan Kennedy, an Upper West Side owner of a dog she claims is not friendly to other dogs or people he is unfamiliar with, hired a dog walker because he lived in her building and locality was most important to her.

For the Upper East Side’s William Chan, finding a dog walker was never of great concern and neighborhood recommendations sufficed to convince him whom to hire.

“It was a referral to someone else at the time, a neighbor of a neighbor,” Chan said.