Published in the January 19, 2017 edition
AYDEN FORNI (left) returned Reading resident Michael Creamer’s missing dog Cody this week after the dog was found in North Reading. (Courtesy Photo)
By BILL LaFORME
NORTH READING – A nearly month long search for a lost pet came to a happy conclusion this week, with help from locals who helped get the word out via social media.
Cody, a four year old Yorkie, was reported missing on Dec. 29 by Michael Creamer of Reading, who said he lives about four miles from where the dog was found. In a phone conversation with the Transcript this week, Creamer explained that Cody had escaped out a door when he was letting in a friend. He put up
some flyers for the dog, and soon after, word started to spread on Facebook, and people started to report Cody sightings.
Kristie Forni of North Reading, the owner of Absolute Fitness, was among those who tried to help get the word out about the missing dog, including by telling her members and by posting on the North Reading Community Connection Facebook page, where the story had been drawing interest from many users and where various Cody sightings were noted. In a string of posts that lasted throughout this month, dozens of residents weighed in with tips and messages of support. “It was unbelievable. Everyone was following Cody the first few weeks,” Forni told the Transcript. “It was really a community connection, it was awesome.”
Cody was spotted within a week of first running off, in a yard on Washington Street on Jan. 5 for example, and in another yard on Virginia Street on the ninth.
The efforts paid off because on Monday afternoon, Forni reported she received a call from her friend Stella Curry saying that Cody had been spotted on Chestnut Street but that he had run away again. After sending Creamer a message online, she and her son Ayden drove to where the dog was sighted, and sure enough, with help from a neighbor driving around the neighborhood with his pickup truck, Cody was spotted soon after and Ayden picked him up and retrieved him from a yard. Soon after, he was reunited with his owner.
Forni said that Cody was “really skin and bones when we got him.” She added that she was particularly happy the dog was reunited with his family because it would be so hard to have her own dog in such a situation.
In a follow up conversation with the Transcript, Creamer said the Cody story had been picked up by the Channel 7 news as well. A veterinarian who checked Cody reportedly said the dog was very lucky to survive 19 days outside in winter weather without encountering any coyotes or other such hazards. “He just needs to get meat back on his bones,” said Creamer.
