By Helena Adeloju
Five Maremma Sheepdog puppies that went missing from a Cardinia farm have been reunited with their owner, but a sixth puppy is still missing.
Maremma owner Silvano Traverso said the last puppy is still out there unaccounted for.
“I hoping and praying for the sixth pup,” Mr Traverso said.
The missing puppy was last seen when all six puppies disappeared. Two teenage girls were reportedly seen carrying the puppies to a waiting vehicle on Tuesday 7 March.
Mr Traverso was appealing for the safe return of the last missing puppy when the others returned to his Tooradin Station Road farm on Tuesday 21 March.
“Puppy number six, feel it in your heart, needs to be with his brothers and sisters and mum,” he said. “Please have the puppy returned in the kindest way possible.”
Cranbourne police said they had interviewed people in connection with the disappearance of the puppies and that those people had been released pending summons.
They are continuing their investigations.
Mr Traverso said it was a bittersweet feeling with the last puppy still missing but the “five are doing very well”.
“They have rebonded with their mum,” he said. “They are just gorgeous.”
Mr Traverso first appealed to the wider Melbourne community for help on Neil Mitchell’s 3AW radio program when the puppies had been missing for almost three weeks.
At that time he feared the puppies, which were worth about $1000 each, may have died.
Mr Traverso said he never expected the media interest that followed.
Channel Ten, Channel 9 and Channel 7 featured his story in news bulletins on Monday 20 March, but Mr Traverso said he hadn’t expected a good result so soon.
“It’s less than 48 hours,” he said.
“Thirty-six hours after 3AW, and the pups have tuned up,” he said.
On Tuesday 21 March Mr Traverso received the news he had be praying for.
Station Street Veterinary Clinic in Kooweerup called to say a jogger had found five of the pups abandoned at the Tooradin Primary School and brought them in.
When Mr Traverso arrived at the vet clinic shortly after noon on Wednesday 22 March to take the puppies home he was elated and relieved to see the “five out of six alive and pretty well”.
“I’m high without drugs. I’m high on love,” he said.
“The clouds are hanging about me and I’m not sure how far below me earth is.”
Mr Traverso also expressed his gratitude to the jogger who discovered the abandoned pups.
“Pretty good work, jogger,” he said, “thank you.”
Maremma sheepdogs were made famous in the last couple of years by the movie Oddball about the dog that guarded penguins.
“Maremmas are usually wonderfully diligent guard dogs,” Mr Traverso said.
“For over 2000 years in Italy they’ve been doing the job of being loving, bonding guardians to children, livestock and homes and property,” Mr Traverso said.
Three of the pups are promised to families who will be awaiting their delivery in the next few weeks now that they have been found.
