When an alert citizen saw a mixed-breed Pekinese dog wandering alone on the streets of Tel Aviv, he had no idea that the dog would be at the center of a controversy. The citizen, who understood that the dog was lost, brought it to the offices of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Israel. As is customary in such cases, the representatives of the Society checked the electronic chip and discovered that the dog, named Mooky, was 14 years old, and according to the National Chip Center belonged to a Tel Aviv resident named Erez Torati. The representatives contacted the owner of the dog, who had difficulty believing that it was his dog they were speaking about, since Mooky had been stolen from in front of his house about three years ago. The stunned Erez, who was at that time on a work location in the north of Israel, decided to drop everything he was doing and set out in the direction of the Society.
Several minutes after the conversation with Erez, a woman walked into the Society’s facilities looking for her lost dog. According to the description that she gave, the representatives of the society understood that she was speaking about the very same dog. According to her, she had bought the dog for 2,000 NIS two years ago, from a man in the HaTikvah neighborhood.
It is important to note that every dog must receive a vaccination against rabies once a year. The veterinarian who gives the vaccination needs to check that the owner’s details are up-to-date at the National Chip Center. So if the dog had been properly cared for, the veterinarian would have seen that the woman was not the registered legal owner of the dog.
The representatives of the Society tried to find out how it was that the dog was in her possession for two years and in all that time she never bothered to update the registration at the National Chip Center. They also asked the woman for the dog’s vaccination book or other proof for her contentions, but they received no answers on that account. Since the representatives of the Society understood immediately that there was a high probability that the dog had been with her, they explained to the woman with great empathy that they could not return the dog to her because, according to the National Chip Center, someone else was the owner of the dog.
An hour and a half later, Erez Torati arrived at the Society. The meeting between him and the dog was very moving. The dog began to wag its tail furiously when he saw his owner. “I didn’t believe that I would ever see him again,” Erez said excitedly. “Even when I called my mother on the way here, she thought I was dreaming and that there was no chance that this was really Mooky. This time I will guard him well and I won’t let him run around on his own. I can understand what is going on in the heart of this woman, but Mooky is mine and finally he is coming home thanks to the Society”.
