A fortnight ago, when R. Revathi, a resident of SRV Nagar in Tirunagar, went home for lunch, she did not see her Labrador pup Toetoo, usually left out in the front yard. But when she opened the front door, the dog jumped out and ran past her on to the road. The 45-year-old woman was puzzled. But there was more to follow. As she entered the house she saw currency notes strewn on the living room floor.
Revathi, employed in a private firm, suddenly remembered that she had absent-mindedly left a purse containing Rs. 30,000 — a wad of Rs. 1,000 notes — on a shelf, money set apart to pay her son Goutham’s fees at an engineering college. The scattered furniture and the strewn currency notes indicated a possible burglary attempt and a struggle between the thief and the seven-month-old Toetoo.
“We used to leave the pup in the verandah (behind the grille gate). But, for the last one week, it was left outside the house,” Goutham said.
The family members routinely left the keys to the house on a window. “Someone who had noticed this habit must have gained entry into the house by using the keys left there. Probably, he did not notice the dog,” Goutham said.
‘I guess that the thief did not expect the white pup to follow him into the hall. When he laid his hands on the purse, the dog must have jumped on him. On encountering an unexpected attack, the thief must have panicked and knocked against the furniture,” he added.
The purse was found in shreds, probably because the thief struggled to escape from the pup. “Toetoo had the habit of firmly holding on to things it catches,” Gowtham noted. He ruled out the possibility of the pup having been locked inside the house. “The purse was kept in a shelf which is out of reach of the pup,” he said.
The family members did not lodge a police complaint since no valuables, including jewels kept in the bedroom, were missing.
However, they miss their favourite pup. They are searching for Toetoo.
