Passenger Forces Jetblue Plane to Turn Around After Pet Dog Escapes

Passenger Forces Jetblue Plane to Turn Around After Pet Dog Escapes
Bowen Xiao
10/22/2017
Updated:
10/24/2017

It’s every pet owner’s nightmare to hear that their beloved pet has run away.

Gwen Wunderlich that call while she was on a Jetblue plane on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport, in New York City. The call was from her dog walker, who told her that her chow chow, Cash, had escaped his leash and run off, CBS reported.

Wunderlich had adopted Cash six years ago. Cash had gotten off his leash in Brooklyn and had taken off in the direction of Manhattan.

“’Oh my god, we’ve lost the dog, we lost him, he escaped, we’re so sorry.’ And they were crying,” Wunderlich told CBS.

It was then that Wunderlich told an airline stewardess to turn the plane around. But it had already started moving on the tarmac.

“I told the stewardess. I got up, and she was like, ‘Are you sure? We can only turn around for emergencies,’“ Wunderlich told CBS. ”I’m like, ‘this is an emergency for me.’”

The frantic pet owner turned to the police for help. They told her a dog had been spotted in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, several blocks from her home. She then posted her search on social media and immediately started getting calls about other sightings in Lower Manhattan.

“We drove to Canal Street, we drove to the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, back downtown by Canal Street,” Wunderlich told CBS.

She then got word that Cash had been seen on the East Side. She continued to get updates from her friends who were also on the hunt in different parts of the city. She came across many strangers who had seen the dog.

“Earlier this morning, a coworker of mine saw him there. I think people tried to get him, but he ran this way,” one woman told CBS.

“Oh my God we tried to get him so bad. I took my leash off my dog, and he went down Second Avenue,” another said.

It was seven hours after Cash had first run off when Wunderlich got a call from Animal Control, CBS reported.

Cash had walked into a deli at 18th Street and Eighth Avenue, gone behind the counter and wouldn’t leave. Police were called and Cash was taken by Animal Control where they were finally reunited.

Cash did not have a microchip on him to track his location, so that’s the first thing Wunderlich took care of.

Wunderlich described the ordeal in a Facebook post.

Bowen Xiao was a New York-based reporter at The Epoch Times. He covers national security, human trafficking and U.S. politics.
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