Mê Thú Cưng - Pet Magazine for Vietnam Native Dogs in Vietnam Issue | Page 68

URBAN PETS Living with Pets in Vietnam
ALERT! a cautionary tale
your dogs are still at risk
The brutal dog-napping, agonizing rescue and joyous
reunion with family of my dog, Basant.
By Tanya Pisarchuk
Hanoi. February 16, 2017. A couple of weeks ago
our dog was kidnapped only a hundred meters from my
house during a daily walk. The kidnappers threw a lasso
over and pulled my dog onto their motorbike and sped
away. It all happened in seconds. My dog was only five
meters from my reach and I could do nothing.
It’s hard to describe how the whole family felt that
evening. Children were crying, I blamed myself for
letting the dog run without a leash, as my friend Nadia
was calling friends trying to make a plan of action. At
night, my heart stopped beating rhythmically, I could
not sleep as I reflected again and again on photos of my
Basant, being slowly pulled into darkness.
In the morning we started our search. The first thing
we did was hang flyers with contact details on each
wall in the area of the dog-napping and then posted
the same details on my Facebook account. Our friends
advised us to consider ransom, greed is the only thing
that motivates dog-nappers. Then we visited all the dog
selling venues we knew in Hanoi. We saw dozens of
stolen dogs crammed in tiny cages, sometimes two or
three in one cage. We did not go to those places where
dogs are butchered for ‘dog meat restaurants’ because
Basant is an expensive dog breed, a Vietnamese Phu
Quoc dog and we knew that they would not him for dog
meat. I know it sounds weird, but his pedigree and his
‘value’ saved his life.
On the second day we went to a dog “shelter” in Ha
Dong that our friends passed by accidentally. There we
gave our flyer to the owner and were about to leave, but
then my friend Slava said, “Let’s have a cig”. We had
none at the time so it took a while to buy cigarettes and
begin smoking. This time delay gave us a break. We
saw a guy on a bike and this guy came directly to us
and told us that he saw the photos of our dog and we
understood what he wanted. I said, “we will give you
money, so make the call”. He nodded happily. An hour
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later he called to a Vietnamese friend and said that the
dog is no longer in Hanoi but in Bach Ninh and sold to
someone else. We immediately began to investigate
Bach Ninh and found a dog club there. We copied all
the names and phone numbers found at their Facebook
page and were about to leave when this guy called
again from Ha Dong. He said instead of our offer of 5
million VND, they want 10 million and he wanted us to
sign a statement that he just worked for us and helped
to find your dog. We said, “first we see the dog, then you
receive money”.
At this stage of the negotiations, I remembered a book
by Gavin Kennedy ‘Everything is Negotiable’ as well as
several movies about kidnapping. The idea of negotiating
with these criminals is not to agree to their terms. In
conclusion, in theory it all sounds great, but when you
receive a video where you see your dog whining in a
cage much too small in size, then reassuring theories
disappear. We were ready and willing to pay. Our children
said that if we need money, they have “pocket money”. I
had 6.5 million VND from the sale of a motorbike, which
I sold the day before. So we collected 10 million but we
wanted to make sure our dog was alive. Then, we went
to meet these people….
They arrived together to the meeting, this guy and his
wife. I know that it was his wife, as this guy is not quite
smart posting on his Facebook accounts pictures of
his wife, child and even passport. I have posted on my
own Facebook page complete details of this man and
his wife. I want him, and others to, be scared the rest of
his life for their horrible actions. Honestly, when I saw
them, I immediately calmed down. Because they looked
scared to death, his eyes were running, and his stupid
bitch of a wife was nervously saying, something which
I could not quite understand. Once I said, “shut the
f*** up”. For Slava and myself we had nothing to worry
about, we had the money and I know that I will give