For Janin Scharrenberg and Steffen Kagerah who have been travelling the world since April 2016, their travel companion who went missing on Saturday has kept them on their toes. Their dog, one -and- a-half-year-old Luke, a black Labrador mix puppy, was taken from outside their car near the Marina beach on Saturday and the couple are fervently hoping that they find him before their stint in Chennai comes to an end.
“At 4.30 p.m. on Saturday, Steffen had gone to the harbour to enquire about shipping our car to Sri Lanka, our next stop. I was waiting on the Marina beach for my husband. Since the car was getting too hot in the sun, Luke was tied to the vehicle and was sitting under it and I was inside the vehicle for a few minutes. A few passers-by who saw an autorickshaw driver remove Luke’s leash and drive away with him alerted me, but by then, it was too late,” she said. Ms.Janin and her husband Mr. Steffen had initially decided to do a tour of Europe but then visited Turkey and decided to see more places. “After visiting Pakistan, we came into India and travelled from Amritsar all the way to Rameswaram while driving along the west coast,” she said.
The couple had found Luke as a street puppy in Greece last year. “We found him near our car and looked for his owners as well as took him to a Vet nearby. We finally adopted him, got him a pet passport and a microchip embedded before continuing our travels from there,” he said.
They have been documenting their travels online under the name Syncro Travels and Luke features prominently in many of their photos and videos detailing their travel stories from across the world. While they are expected to be in Chennai till July 17, they said they were heading to Sri Lanka next.
On Monday, Ms. Janin and Mr. Steffen were distributing pamphlets and posters offering a reward for any information about their missing pet and have been asking people to reach out to them on syncrotravels@gmail.com for the same. Ms. Janin said they had also contacted the Blue Cross, and were in touch with the local police.
