A Southern California couple who lost their French bulldog spent the past two months searching for the dog, relying on bloodhounds, animal psychics, cash prizes and door-to-door canvassing.
But the dog “Mushi” still hasn’t shown up and the determined couple now have to endure scam calls and prank calls.
Still, Gabriella Sidhu and her partner Chris Casey aren’t ready to give up.
“He’s not just a dog like people say,” Sidhu said. “She’s the closest thing we have to a baby.”
If they were looking for a daughter and not a dog, no one would question their efforts, she says.
The drama alleges that around 6:15 p.m. on Sept. 17, Sidhu, 24, dropped Mushy off with a dog sitter she hired through the pet services company Rover in the North Hollywood neighborhood near Victory Boulevard and Beck Avenue. It started when.
Sidhu was on his way to see the movie “Beetlejuice” at Universal CityWalk with Casey and a friend. She said she noticed the sitter observing at least five other dogs but thought nothing of it.
“It’s been a while since we actually went outside,” Sidhu said. “And it became the worst night of our lives.”
Just 14 minutes later, the dog sitter called her. Moussier, who had managed to slip out of his harness and run out the gate, was nowhere to be seen.
“The traffic was slow and time seemed to be moving very slowly,” Sidhu said as he returned to his sitter. They searched for hours but could not find Moussier.
Instead of returning to her home in El Sereno, she and her partner took time off from work, slept in their car for two weeks, and stayed in the area where the dog was lost.
Moussy, whom the couple rescued from a breeder, is a spayed black brindle French bulldog with a white chest, perky ears and no tail. She is about 6 years old and requires daily medication and a special diet due to health issues, which is also why they are worried.
Sidhu and Casey spent thousands of dollars trying to find her and offered a $5,000 reward for her return. The couple hired a bloodhound trainer to track Moussie’s scent from the dog sitter’s home to a nearby spot where the road had cooled and stopped. Mr Sidhu said his trainer suspected that someone had picked up Moussier and brought him home.
The couple also hired several pet communicators, or animal psychics, who claim they can telepathically connect with pets and help owners understand them. But still, Sidhu said he was out of luck.
“It’s hard to know if it will help,” she said.
Sidhu said the dog-sitting company Rover was initially supportive, paying for flyers and searching local shelter websites for Musi. The company said the sitter would also help search for Moussier. However, when she contacted Sidhu a few days later, she said she was unable to look for Mushie because she was watching another pack of dogs.
Sidhu, who works as a federal employee, said she felt Rover wasn’t doing enough to find the dog and only removed the dog sitter who lost Moussie from its platform after KTLA-TV reached out to Rover for comment. He said he is doing so.
In a statement to the Times, Rover said it had taken several steps to locate Moussy.
“To assist in our search efforts, we are relying on information that could lead to the reunification of Moussier and his family, information posted on online pet finder websites that send direct alerts to local shelters and veterinarians, and information from our sitter community. We have offered a large reward to members if they contact us in this area,” Rover said in a statement.
Since the dog disappeared, Sidhu and Casey have contacted every veterinarian, pet store, library, school, and shelter in the area to see if the dog would show up or someone had left it there in the past two months. I hope you will see hundreds of flyers. . Sidhu said they have been searching for her over the weekend and in the evenings after work, vowing to go door-to-door until they reach every home in the San Fernando Valley.
Sidhu also had to fend off fraudulent phone calls from people pretending to own the dog and demanding bounties. Some of the callers threatened to keep the dog or said they had hit Musi with their car. She said some people tease her by barking into the phone.
“We’ve had some bad calls, some bad interactions, but we’ve met far more good and kind people than bad people,” she said. “So we hope the right people will help us and Musi.”
Sidhu said one of the couple’s concerns was that Mushie was alone waiting for rescuers to come.
“The only thing we can control is our actions and efforts. We can’t give up on her,” she said.
If you see Mushie or know where she is, Sidhu asks that you please call (760) 960-9272.
