It isn’t rare that a neighborhood dog goes missing. However, it takes a whole community working together to bring that dog home.

Nanook, a 5-year-old male Native American Indian Dog, went missing on Aug. 4 in Cranston in the area between Hope Hill Terrace, Kimberly Lane and the Word of Life Covenant Church.

Shaina Johnson, the owner, brought Nanook home just 24 hours before he went missing. Nanook, who had a history of bolting during his transport from New York, slipped out the sliding glass door at Johnson’s home.

“If they run once, they will most likely run again,” said Dawn McPhillips, who works with Missing Dogs Massachusetts, the organization that was hired to trap Nanook. “He went completely into a flight mode, where [dogs] tend to avoid people more.”

Missing Dogs Massachusetts is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that works free of charge to reunite missing dogs with their owners across Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Over the next few days, Nanook traveled over two miles from his home to the Cranston Country Club. He circled the golf course several times before settling down in one wooded area. The Cranston Country Club allowed the trapping team to set up the trap and trail cameras on the golf course and use their golf carts to help catch Nanook.

“The Cranston Country Club owner was amazing with letting us put up cameras and traps all over the property,” said Beckie Paniccia, who assisted McPhillips with the trapping efforts. “I just went with Dawn for company, but I learned so much about dogs and how they behave.”

“It’s very important for people to not try to grab the missing dog, but to call in sightings,” Paniccia explained. “Old-fashioned flyers with pictures of the dog is the most crucial part of catching the dog.”

McPhillips and her team set up a trap as well as a food source in one corner of the golf course. “He knew that he could come and get some food there, and so he ended up coming back,” she said. On Aug. 8 around 10 p.m., Nanook was successfully trapped by the Missing Dogs Massachusetts team and returned to his owner.

“Thank you to the community members who posted the flyers,” said McPhillips in her Facebook post. “Every lost dog’s behavior is different and they react differently to situations when in flight mode. Nanook needed time and patience and the community gave him that.”

“They do it right. They’re very smart and very patient,” said Paniccia about the Missing Dogs Massachusetts team. “The most important thing I learned is just to be patient. Sometimes it takes weeks to get the dog.” 

McPhillips recommends giving newly adopted dogs plenty of time to adjust to their new homes, which she says takes around three weeks. “Give your dog time to decompress when they get home, never just let them loose in the yard,” she says.

Village Paws on Putnam Pike in Greenville scheduled a grooming appointment for Nanook just days after he was found. According to McPhillips, he looks as though he never went missing in the first place.